THE director-general of health should support his claim with medical evidence that certain Covid-19 positive cases detected in Parliament were linked to the Delta variant, DAP stalwart Lim Kit Siang said today.

The veteran lawmaker described Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah’s statement regarding the special parliamentary sitting being a potential superspreader as “most unfortunate” and asked if it was just to frighten the MPs.

He urged the director-general of health to prove his statement with medical facts.

“Where is the evidence? Is this just to frighten the MPs?

“There were 11 cases out of 1,183 workers who were screened. If all 1,183 were tested, then the positivity rate is about 1%, which is nowhere near the super-sperader status.

“The other justification for a superspreader possibility is a new variant. Were genomic studies done? If so, what were the results?” the Iskandar Puteri MP asked in a statement today.

In a Facebook post last night, Noor Hisham said that four samples of Covid-19 cases in Parliament discovered last Thursday were most likely to be of the Delta variant.

Noor Hisham had also announced that Parliament will be closed for two weeks from that day onwards.

He said this was taking into account the current risk assessment involving mass gatherings, which posed a high risk of Covid-19 transmission, especially at times where dangerous variants such as the Delta variant – known as B.1.617.2 – are spreading within the community and the worsening daily cases recorded nationwide.

Pakatan Harapan leaders responded by warning Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin not to use agencies and ministries, including the director-general of health, to close Parliament under the guise of the Covid-19 pandemic.

They also reminded Noor Hisham not to allow himself to be manipulated by the Perikatan Nasional government to deliberately stop the Parliament sitting.

Lim also said Parliament should proceed for fully inoculated MPs.

“The prime minister is fully vaccinated. Why is he not coming to Parliament to answer all the questions the country is asking?” he asked.

Earlier this morning, opposition MPs were prevented from entering Parliament and threatened with arrest by police manning roadblocks. – August 2, 2021.