Kota Kinabalu: Sabah’s Covid-19 spokesperson Datuk Seri Masidi Manjun said the Omicron variant should be a concern, but the State should avoid a knee-jerk reaction.
He said this in response to whether Sabah plans to restrict Sabahans from travelling abroad to prevent instances of them returning with the virus. The question was posed in view of the first Omicron case detected in Tawau on Jan. 4.
“We should be concerned with the Omicron (in fact the whole world does) but we should avoid knee-jerk reaction. We will be guided by how the rest of the world is reacting,” he said.
He further said there is no international travel at the moment, with the exception of returning Sabahans.
In Sabah, the first Omicron case involved a man who returned to Malaysia with his wife on Dec. 19 via the Kuala Lumpur International Airport after conducting Umrah in Saudi Arabia from Dec. 9 to 18. The couple landed in Tawau on Dec. 20, and were ordered to undergo home quarantine upon arrival.
He said the results of the whole genome sequencing test on Jan 4 found the man had been positive for the Omicron variant.
The man’s spouse who was also undergoing quarantine at the same time as her husband tested positive for Covid-19 through a PCR test on Dec 24. The “whole genome sequencing” results for his wife are still being tested at IMR.
Masidi said both patients were fully vaccinated as early as June 2021, adding that both are healthy.
“The husband was in Category 2 while his wife was in Category 1. They both completed quarantine on Jan. 1, 2022 and had recovered from the Covid virus infection,” he said.
Meanwhile, Covid-19 cases continued to rise in Sabah, with 280 new cases reported, up from 258 the day before.
According to Masidi, the surge is most likely a result of the holiday cheer.
“Taking a look at the different types of cases (276 out of 280 in Category One and Two only). We shouldn’t be overly concerned, but we should be cautious and alert,” he said.
Meanwhile, 11 districts saw a double-digit increase in instances, with three of them exceeding 40, namely Kota Belud 41, Kota Kinabalu 41, and Tuaran 40. There were single-digit instances in 13 districts, while there were no new cases in the three districts.
There was a considerable increase in instances in Kota Belud and Tuaran, with 22 and 18 cases, respectively. Penampang, on the other hand, saw a considerable drop in instances, with a reduction of 36.
Today, 276 out of 280 cases are classified as Category One or Two. There are no cases in Category Three, but there are two in Category Four and one in Category Five. One case is still being investigated by the State Health Department.
Despite no new clusters discovered, Sabah reported one Covid-19 fatality in Ranau. A total of 210 Covid-19 patients have been discharged, while 408 have remained in hospitals, 362 have been placed in low-risk quarantine centres, and one has been placed in a private facility.
Twenty-nine patients are in Intensive Care and 14 are on ventilator support. There were a total of 25 patients in Stages four and five who had not yet complete their vaccine doses.
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