Bandar Kuching MP Dr Kelvin Yii says the Sarawak government should be transparent and reveal the number of Covid-19 cases and clusters in the state. – Borneo Post pic
KUCHING, March 4 – The Sarawak government should be transparent and reveal the number of Covid-19 cases and clusters in Sarawak, especially when cases are on the rise of late, said Bandar Kuching MP Dr Kelvin Yii.
He clarified this is not to instill fear or create panic among the rakyat but to keep them informed and remind them that they should not be complacent even during this Covid-19 Omicron wave.
Citing the just concluded Citrawarna Keluarga Malaysia programme at the Kuching Waterfront as an example, he pointed out that the government should have been more transparent about whether a cluster had formed from this event and how many positive cases were detected.
“We have seen a sharp increase of cases in Sarawak from about 400 cases to 1,357 yesterday (March 2) which is an increase of more than 50 per cent in the past few days. I believe the numbers will increase further and yet somehow there’s no cluster being declared.
“This means that the public have no idea what kind of activities or location contributed to the increase and are thus unable to make the informed decision to protect themselves or be served as a reminder to not let their guards down in those locations or activities,” he said in a statement.
He said the people cannot assume and treat the Covid-19 Omicron variant as less severe compared to the previous Covid-19 variants.
“This virus is still dangerous especially for the high risk groups such as the elderly and unvaccinated.
“We have seen an increase in hospitalisation while the overall death rate has also increased in our country including those that are brought-in-dead (BID).
“Such deaths have risen to consistent double-digits since mid-February, hitting a peak of 22 on Feb 18,” said Dr Yii.
He said the Ministry of Health’s analysis of the BID from February 5 to 21 found that 91 per cent or 103 cases were only detected as positive during the post-mortem.
“The concern of such statistics is that many are unaware that they are sick and they are also unaware that they could have brought the virus back home to high risk groups at home from the different locations or activities they were at.
“That is why when it comes to declaration of clusters, it is vital that there is greater transparency to enable the public to make informed choices while at the same time, remind us all that we should not take this virus lightly even as the country’s economy and border reopen progressively,” he stressed.
Dr Yii believed that cases in Malaysia may not have peaked yet due to several factors including lack of testing even as Covid-19 test positive rates in the country were around 14 to 15 per cent – three times above the World Health Organisation (WHO) threshold.
In order to have a clearer picture of the Covid-19 situation in the country, he said the government must ensure that there are adequate self-testing kits in market and that the prices do not increase when there is an increase in demand due to lack of stock; they must find ways to encourage and incentivise the public to report their RTK self-test results on MySejahtera to ensure they get the accurate, better picture of cases in the different locations; and they must avoid or postpone any activities or events where standard operating procedure (SOP) compliance is hard to control or enforced, risking it to be a super-spreader event.
“The people must also do their part by monitoring the elderly and high risk groups and to bring them for medical attention as soon as they display any Covid-19 symptoms.
“They must also get their Covid-19 booster shots and there should be an increase in efforts to vaccinate the unvaccinated to ensure they are protected,” he suggested.
Dr Yii said while he believed in the need to transition into endemicity, this should not come at the cost of lives that could be prevented.
“We are not there yet, and we must not be reckless. That is why the fundamentals of transparency are still important to build trust between the government and people as we tackle this pandemic and open the economy safely and sustainably,” he said. – Borneo Post