Labuan on verge of recovery

LABUAN: Labuan is on the verge of recovery from the Covid-19 outbeak, having flattened the curve in the last two days and the trend is expected to continue until next week.

Labuan Health Department Director, Dr Ismuni Bohari said the spread of the virus in the local community was well-controlled but the challenge was dealing with the inflow of travellers to the island.

“We have been able to flatten the curve and we are quite optimistic that the cases will continue to drop significantly. We are doing ‘maintenance’ in the high-risk areas like in the water squatter settlements and the rented ‘kongsi’ houses to monitor adherence to the standard operating procedure (SOP)  .

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“If the SOP is disobeyed, allowing congestion and stuffiness at the rented houses or rooms and squatter settlements to continue, we may not able to stop the Covid-19 spread in the local community,” he told Bernama Tuesday.

Labuan, Malaysia’s international business and financial centre, recorded 104 cases on Nov 7, before the the number declined to 24 the next day and 63 on Monday.

Dr Ismuni said a total of 34,992 Covid-19 samples had been collected from Sept 27 until Monday, with some 2, 000 results to be released this week.

He said the non-active clusters of Bah Bangat with 11 cases, Bah Bundle (30) and Bah Layangan (five) would be closed on Nov 14.

The Saguking, Tenaga, Bina, Titian and Limbungan are also showing a drastic drop or nil cases in the last few days.

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“The contributing cases are now from the positive patients’ close contacts which are being resolved but we have a big challenge of dealing with the inflow of travellers from Sabah.

“We cannot stop people from coming to Labuan, as we still heavily depend on food and other goods from Sabah. It’s the same for our local people, we cannot stop them from visiting their families in Sabah, which may see new cases in the future,” he said.

Labuan has been recording daily cases over the past 44 days (since Sept 27), with the number reaching  1,046 by Nov 9, from only 26 cases on Sept 26. It now has the seventh highest number of Covid-19 cases in the country.

Meanwhile, a total of 108 students from Sekolah Menengah Sains (SMS) Labuan returned to their hometowns in Sabah and Sarawak Tuesday via Labuan ferry terminals and Labuan Airport.

This follows the Education Ministry’s directive on the closure of schools and vocational colleges following the implementation of the Conditional Movement Control Order (CMCO) in all states except Kelantan, Pahang, Perlis and Sarawak from Nov 9 until Dec 6. 

The boarding school’s principal, Mahamad Shukri Said, said the remaining batch of at least 100 Form Five students in hostels would return to their hometowns in the next couple of days.

“The school, which has 336 students, will be closed within the next three days, and no students are allowed in the school premises,” he told Bernama.

To help break the Covid-19 infection chain, the Ministry of Education has decided to immediately cut short the school session for this year, which was originally due to end on Dec 17 for schools in Kedah, Johor, Kelantan and Terengganu, and Dec 18 for the other states.