NO exceptions are being given to teachers from the peninsula who are returning to Sarawak prior to the reopening of schools on January 20.

They and their accompanying dependents will all have to undergo the mandatory quarantine and Covid-19 testing, Deputy Chief Minister Douglas Uggah Embas said today.

Uggah, who chairs the state’s disaster management committee on the pandemic, said some of the 4,000 teachers and their families have flown back to Sarawak.

They went to Peninsular Malaysia when schools were ordered shut in November last year to break the Covid-19 infection chain.

“They will be quarantined at the point of entry,” he said today.

The state’s standard operating procedure (SOP) for the returning teachers were just approved today, whereby those teaching in urban schools will undergo 10 days in quarantine while those posted to rural schools will have a longer quarantine of 14 days.

Testing for the virus will be on the second day and eighth day in quarantine.

Uggah said the cost of the tests will be borne by the Health Ministry while the cost of quarantining them will be picked up by the Sarawak government. – January 7, 2021.