Dr Noor Hisham: Five new Covid-19 clusters identified today

IPOH, Nov 5 — Five new Covid-19 clusters were identified today, the Health Ministry announced.

Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said that two clusters were reported in Sabah and three others in Selangor, Penang and Kuala Lumpur.

“The first is the cluster Sutera which involves the Kinabalu district in Sabah. The index cases for the cluster — case 35,499 and 35000 — were tested positive for Covid-19 at Hospital Queen Elizabeth after exhibiting symptoms.

“Contact tracing reveals 13 more positive cases. A total of 32 individuals has been screened as of November 5, in which 15 tested positive, six tested negative and 11 still awaiting results,” he said in his daily briefing.

Dr Noor Hisham said the second cluster in Sabah is the Ria-30 cluster which is linked to the Tuaran district.

“The cluster was identified following a community screening. A total of 254 individuals were screened with 11 tested positive, 121 tested negative and 122 still awaiting results.

“All the positive cases in this cluster have been place under the Intan Covid-19 low risk quarantine and treatment centre in Sepanggar,” he said.

In Selangor, he said the new Tamar cluster was detected in the Petaling district and the index case for the cluster is case 32,410.

“A total of 11 cases were tested positive and placed at Hospital Sungai Buloh. While 57 individuals tested negative, 70 are still awaiting for the results in this cluster,” he added.

Dr Noor Hisham said the Intan cluster in Penang involves the Timur Laut district and is linked to index case 30,788, who is a foreigner.

“Nine individuals were tested positive, 35 were tested negative and 54 still awaiting results,” he said.

Meanwhile, Dr Noor Hisham said the Danau cluster in Kuala Lumpur’s Titiwangsa district is linked to index case 29,286.

“A total of 82 were screened and eight were tested positive, 40 were tested negative while 34 still have their result pending,” he added.

Separately, Dr Noor Hisham said that the implementation of the enhanced movement control order (EMCO) and the conditional movement control order (CMCO) is not purely based on the colour code, but risk evaluation as well.

“At the moment, we have four colour codes to mark the number of Covid-19 cases in each zone under the districts.

“The green colour indicates zero cases, yellow colour indicates one to 20 cases, orange colour indicates 21 to 40 cases and red colour is for 41 cases and above. This is purely for administration purposes in the districts,” he said.

He explained that the authorities would implement EMCO and CMCO in a certain zone or area even though the colour code is only at yellow or orange and not necessarily red.

“We do this as a precautionary measure as the risk evaluation conducted in the area shows there possibility for high infection. That is why we implement it in Selangor and Kuala Lumpur even though the cases at time was still low.

“Similarly if a district has more than 40 cases and all the cases were detected at a prison, there is no reason to implement EMCO or CMCO in the whole district,” he said.