MOST of Sarawak will go into phase 3 of the national recovery plan tomorrow, with the exception of eight districts in the state’s southern zone still grappling with Covid-19 infections. 

Sarawak disaster management committee said today the transition of Kuching, Bau, Lundu, Samarahan, Simunjan, Asajaya, Serian and Tebedu to phase 3 has been “postponed until the spread of Covid-19 cases shows a more satisfactory downward trend”.

Of concern is the highly transmissible Delta variant.

Genomic scientists at the Institute of Health and Community Medicine (IHCM) of Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas) earlier today reported to committee chairman Douglas Uggah, that seven cases of a sub-variant of Delta – the Delta Plus - have now been detected in the state, as of July 27.

Four of the cases are detected in Kuching.

On top of which, another 180 cases of the Delta variant have also been detected in Kuching, Lundu (eight) and Bau (five) over the same period, bringing the state’s cumulative total to 273 – the highest concentration of Delta cases in the country.

The head of IHCM, Dr David Prera, attributed this to Sarawak “doing way more genomic sequencing surveillance”.

However, the migration to phase 3 will not bring any immediate change as Sarawakians still have to observe phase 2 standard operating procedures (SOP).

The disaster committee said the phase 3 SOP are still not ready.

“The existing SOP are still in force.”

It said the new SOP will be implemented once the proposed guidelines, the safety and health protocols “are agreed by the state disaster management committee upon the advice of medical experts”.

State health director, Dr Mohamed Sapian Mohamed said though the pandemic in Sarawak as a whole is showing a downward trend – with cases dropping from 5.97% in June to 5.21% in July – the situation in southern Sarawak is still cause for concern.

Mohamed said although the positivity rate in general has decreased, the high number of new cases detected in Kuching, Samarahan and Serian showed there are still community transmissions within these districts.

He added what the statistics did not show the high number of new cases detected in the southern districts, in which an average of 25% of new daily cases reported in July are children under the age of 18.

“These are people not eligible for vaccination under the current national Covid-19 immunisation programme policy.

“They are therefore at risk of infection and complications from Covid-19.”

As of yesterday, 87.3% of the state’s eligible adult populations have had the first dose, while 69.2% have completed the full course. – August 3, 2021.