Two workplace clusters push Sabah’s single-day Covid-19 cases past 2,000 mark

KOTA KINABALU, Aug 12 — Alongside a national record, Sabah today also broke its own record for the highest number of Covid-19 cases per day, at 2,052 new infections.

Sabah Covid-19 spokesman Datuk Seri Masidi Manjun said that the spike in cases, from yesterday’s 1,514 cases, was attributed to two workplace clusters: an offshore oil rig and a construction site in the state capital.

“The two workplace spreads have caused the number of cases to soar past 2,000 today.

“The offshore oil rig virus spread involves 209 workers who tested positive as they were signing off, while the Hyatt Centric construction site involves 109 workers, mostly Filipinos, Chinese nationals and some Malaysians,” he said today.

The other increases were from several districts.

Out of the total 2,052 cases, 44.5 per cent or 914 cases were from close contact screenings, 21.4 per cent or 440 cases were from symptomatic screenings, 91 were from existing clusters and the rest from other categories.

Masidi said that most of the cases were in category 1 (720 people) and 2 (914 people), meaning they are asymptomatic or showing mild symptoms, while 22 people were in category 3, six people in category 4 and two people in category 5.

Category 3 is when patients have pneumonia and require observation by healthcare workers while Category 4 is when the patients need oxygen.

Category 5 patients, meanwhile, are in critical condition and on ventilator support.

The state yesterday said it was concerned over the increasing number of cases and that its priority now was to speed up vaccination as much as possible to achieve herd immunity.

To this effect, it has approved the purchase of vaccines directly by the state and are encouraging the private sector and GLCs to vaccinate their staff with incentives.

The state is hoping to vaccinate some 2.9 million people by year end. It’s currently at some 18 per cent but the figure is expected to increase as the vaccination rate speeds up.