SIBU and its outlying districts of Kanowit and Selangau will be under the movement-control order (MCO) from midnight Saturday after registering another day of three-digit Covid-19 cases.

The 14-day lockdown will end at midnight on January 29.

Of the 180 cases detected in the state in the last 24 hours, 157 were linked to the Pasai cluster – named after the area on the outskirts of this central Sarawak town on Sg Rajang, Pasai Siong.

The state disaster management committee said 150 of the cases were detected in Sibu alone with the rest detected in Bintulu (2), Dalat (3), Simunjan (2) and as far as Kuching (1).

The number of infections in the cluster now stands at 462.

The committee said 1,400 people have been screened so far in its active detection drive of longhouse folk in the area.

A total of 888 have been found to be negative while 50 others are still awaiting their test results.

The committee said the status of nearby town of Sarikei, 40km away, will remain as a recovery MCO (RMCO) area.

The index case is a woman, designated as case 1175, who returned home on December 29 to attend her father’s funeral.

It was reported she had taken a Firefly flight from Johor Baru to Kuala Lumpur to catch a connecting Malaysia Airlines flight to Kuching.

From Kuching, she then boarded an AirAsia flight to Sibu.

She had to take the 12-hour circuitous flight due to disruptions in normal schedule and scarcity of flights due to the restrictions the state had imposed on airlines.

As there were no room in the quarantine facilities in Sibu, it was decided to allow her to undergo home quarantine at her longhouse, a decision that triggered the outbreak in the area.

A week after her arrival on January 5, she took her second Covid-19 test at Lanang health clinic and the result returned positive the next day.

The committee ordered an immediate lockdown of her longhouse and seven surrounding longhouses. – January 14, 2021.