GEORGE TOWN, March 29 — The Kolej Vokasional Butterworth has been ordered to close by the Health Ministry since last Saturday after 36 people there tested positive for Covid-19.
Penang state executive councillor Norlela Ariffin said the cases at the college comprise one of two clusters involving educational institutions in the state.
“The situation at the college is now under control,” she said during the state engagement session here today.
She added that the other educational cluster involved was a school in Bukit Tambun where 16 students tested positive for the coronavirus on March 21.
She said the Bukit Tambun school has about 1,000 students, but was not ordered to close as the cases only involved one class.
“The Health Department was able to control the situation as it only affects one class so the school remained open and need not be shut down,” she said.
The Health Department has also conducted sanitisation and isolated those in the affected class to stop the spread of the virus, she added.
Other than these two clusters involving educational institutions, Norlela said the other main clusters in Penang involved the Juru immigration depot, the industry cluster and the remand prison cluster.
She said the Ministry of International Trade and Industry has implemented Safe@Work at the manufacturing sector to control the spread of the virus.
As for the roll out of the National Covid-19 Immunisation Plan in Penang, she said they have vaccinated 97.5 per cent under phase one as at March 24.
“The Health Ministry is now preparing for phase two of the immunisation plan involving senior citizens and those with chronic conditions,” she said.
Additionally, she said the state has successfully obtained 2,000 vaccine doses to be supplied to teachers in the state under phase one of the immunisation plan.
She said the state has also included about 9,000 doses for frontliners from the city councils.
“Previously, the total frontliners to receive the vaccination were only 31,005 people but we have increased the number of recipients to about 40,000 people,” she said.
Norlela, who is the state agrotechnology, food safety, rural development and health committee chairman, was the first to present programmes and policies under her portfolio at the engagement session held by the Penang government today.
In the two-day engagement session, each state exco will be presenting policies, programmes and activities under their respective portfolio and after each presentation, there will be a question and answer session for state assemblymen to raise any related issues.
The engagement session is held at a hotel ballroom as a check-and-balance measure by the state administration in lieu of the State Legislative Assembly which could not be convened during the emergency period.
The last State Legislative Assembly was held for six days in October last year.
*Editor's note: An earlier version of this article contained an error which has since been rectified.
