SARAWAK recorded its highest number of cases in a single day at 55, of which 37 came from a new cluster, Pasai, in the suburban area of Pasai Siong in Sibu.

The previous single day record was 32 on April 1 last year.

While the Pasai Siong infection was the talk of the day, the seven cases detected in Kuching among those who had gone for voluntary testing after being in close contact with a positive case, are also sending jitters among Sarawakians.

The state disaster management committee on Wednesday had rolled out a new policy in making public a detailed release of the places infected people had been in the last seven days prior to them being tested positive in the hope of detecting more asymptomatic people and taking them out of circulation.

The state hoped that the policy, under the state’s Protection of Public Health Ordinance, 1999, would make people who have been to these places on the same day and the time as the infected person, take a Covid-19 test to determine if they could be infected.

The disaster committee said the seven cases in Kuching, five of them women and all Sarawakians – took the test yesterday, are aged between 22 and 54 and are linked to the Stutong cluster.

They have since been warded into the Sarawak general hospital for isolation and treatment.

To date, 330 people have been screened in the Stutong cluster, with 242 tested negative and another 68 still waiting for the result of their test. – January 9, 2021.