File photo shows a quarantine centre in Peninsular Malaysia.
KUCHING (Jan 15): The issue of quarantine centres, particularly in Sibu, are being addressed with new places being acquired, said State Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) chairman Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas.
“With the number of cases increasing like in Sibu, there are issues of quarantine centres but that is being addressed. A number of hotels and places have been acquired and preparations are being done to make sure that the places are sufficient.
“It’s the same for Miri. There are new places prepared such as service apartments and so on,” he told a press conference on Covid-19 updates today.
Uggah, who is also deputy chief minister, said that they are also looking at increasing testing capacity in the state.
“Testing is being done by the State Health Department and now we are looking at the involvement of private laboratories. They will increase our capacity to test samples.
“Our objective is to make sure that the results can come out within 24 hours. At the moment some of them are out in 36 hours. We hope that with the assistance from the private sector and the increase by the department itself, we will be able to increase our daily testing capacity,” he said.
On another note, Uggah said that Sarawak will continue with its practice of conducting aggressive contact tracing of Covid-19 patients.
He said that while Kuala Lumpur has a new decision to test only those with symptoms, the state has already discussed with the State Health Department and has decided to continue with its own practice.
“We will go for very aggressive contact tracing. Once we have the contact we will test whether they have symptoms or not,” he said.