SARAWAK will be placed under the movement-control order (MCO) from Sunday until June 11, Deputy Chief Minister Douglas Uggah said this afternoon.

Uggah, who chairs the State Disaster Management Committee, said the Covid-19 situation in the state, which has been under the conditional MCO (CMCO), has now reached a critical stage.

“Given that the situation is now critical, added with the detection of new variants, we need to take a more drastic action to curb the spread before it gets more critical,” Uggah said in a press conference.

He said with the increase in average deaths from one in March to two in April and three in May, the trend is putting pressure on the state’s health system.

He added that front-liners are exhausted and the system is nearly overwhelmed.

Uggah said bed capacity in intensive care units (ICU) in all Covid-19-designated hospitals in the state are “at the critical stage” with 81 cases – 31 of them requiring ventilators for respiratory support.

Sarawak had earlier opted to remain under the CMCO although Putrajaya imposed the MCO nationwide this month.

Uggah said the CMCO had led to new Covid-19 clusters linked to Hari Raya visits, despite the disaster committee drawing up standard operating procedure (SOP) for the festivities to avoid further spread of the virus.

“A significant increase in Covid-19 cases was detected after the Hari Raya Aidilfitri as a result of Raya visits,” he said.

Uggah said statistics between May 9 May and 15 showed that there were 3,272 new cases detected, an average of 467 cases per day, linked to the festival.

The state today reported 772 new cases, its second-highest single-day figure.

The nine deaths reported today is the state’s highest number of fatalities in a day.

Uggah said despite SOP tightening under the CMCO, the number of new cases continue to surge.

This, he added, had led to 714 longhouses placed under the EMCO since the beginning of the year.

Of the figure, 98 are still in lockdown. These have been under EMCO since about two weeks ago.

Policing the longhouses under EMCO requires manpower and many of the front-liners tasked with this are fatigued, he said.

“The stricter control of movement over the next two weeks is crucial to curb the spread of the Covid-19 outbreak in Sarawak.” – May 27, 2021.