Dr Kelvin Yii
KUCHING (Apr 16): Bandar Kuching MP Dr Kelvin Yii is calling for transparency about the current Covid-19 situation in the state to allay concerns and fears expressed by the public.
He added that the Ministry of Health and Sarawak Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) also needed to properly explain the reasons behind the decisions made by both SDMC and federal agencies with regards to implementing or not implementing the Movement Control Order (MCO) in severely hit cities in Sarawak.
“With the significant increase of cases in Sarawak the past few weeks and rumours of an implementation of MCO in several parts of Sarawak, it is understandable that the people are anxious and seek proper explanation by the government with regards to the real situation in Sarawak,” he said in a statement today.
Firstly, he said SDMC must be transparent with current data and rate of positive cases on a district and sub-district level and ensure that enough testing is done.
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Yii said that currently the daily focus had primarily been on the total number of new daily Covid-19 cases and while the numbers were important, he felt that people needed to know the total number of tests which were being conducted on a daily basis and the percentage of positive cases.
“This will give us an indication of our testing capacity and the daily infection rate. Based on the limited data available in public, it is stated that on April 15, about 639,767 people in Sarawak were tested which result in a positive rate of about 8.11 per cent, which is much higher than the recommended 5 per cent by the World Health Organisation.
“This basically means that even with high numbers in Sarawak, we are actually not testing enough,” he said.
He added that was why many medical experts have advocated in areas of such outbreaks to switch to the Rapid Testing Kit (RTK) Antigen, which has shorter turnaround times and reduced costs, especially in situations where RT-PCR testing capacity is limited.
“We need to test as many as we can, get results quick, isolate them quick and treat them if needed. I rather see higher numbers now rather than burying our heads in the sand as long as it shows we are testing enough and isolating them quickly as in managing an outbreak, time is of the essence,” he said.
He also said that with more transparency in the data, the government can explain better to the public why an MCO is not being implemented even when there are such high cases or even explain to parents why schools remain open.
“The people deserve to know and responsible to reason and understand decisions of the government if it was properly explained with detailed data, facts and strategy.
“However, by not explaining the reasons behind the decisions clearly, it is as though the government treats the people as fools and this basically increases anxiety and breaks trust which is important to properly manage a public health crisis,” he added.
On top of that, the state government should limit or cancel all government functions that will cause crowds during this period.
“In the past few weeks, multiple federal ministers have visited Sarawak to hold events likely in view of the upcoming election.
“Such events during this period should be postponed and any interactions or meetings can be done through modern technology,” he said.