KOTA KINABALU, Dec 16 — The Sabah government has decided that Sabahans in Brunei could return to the state without having to undergo compulsory quarantine, said state Housing and Local Government Minister, Datuk Masidi Manjun.
Masidi, who is also the state government’s spokesman on COVID-19, however, said the individuals involved must undergo the COVIC-19 RT-PCR or RTK-Ag screening test before returning.
“The test result must be obtained within one to three days before entering Sabah,” he said in a statement, yesterday.
Masidi said the state government also allowed customers dining as a family at restaurants to be seated together at one table.
On another development, he said COVID-19 screening was conducted on a large scale at the Tawau Temporary Detention Centre today and the results were scheduled to be known tomorrow, thus could be contributing to more new cases of infection in the district.
Masidi said 260 COVID-19 new positive cases were recorded today, bringing the cumulative number in the state to 33,371 and three deaths in Sandakan.
He said 139 or 53.5 per cent of the new cases today were the result of close-contact screening in 15 districts, with 52 of the cases (20 per cent) from screening in the existing clusters, symptomatic screening (34 cases or 13.1 per cent), community screening (eight cases or three per cent), and 27 cases (10.4 per cent) in other categories.
He added that 400 COVID-19 patients were reported to have recovered and discharged from hospital, bringing the cumulative number in Sabah to 30,283.
Meanwhile, 2,192 patients are still receiving treatment, comprising 603 at hospitals and 1,589 at the quarantine and low-risk treatment centres (PKRC), 60 at the intensive care units, while 14 require ventilators.
At the COVID-19 hospitals and PKRC, 6,567 beds or 33.38 per cent are in use today.
