Covid-19: S'wak reports 251 new cases, one death, one new workplace cluster

KUCHING: A new workplace cluster has been identified in Sarawak as the state reported 251 new cases and one death on Monday (March 15).

The state disaster management committee said the new Jalan Tanjung cluster was detected at a supermarket in Bintulu and has 19 confirmed cases to date.

"The index case is a 27-year-old Sarawakian woman working at the supermarket who tested positive on March 13 at the Bintulu health clinic.

"She had no close contact with other positive cases earlier, and was likely to have contracted the infection from a community transmission in Bintulu," it said in a statement on Monday (March 15).

The committee said contact tracing among workers at the supermarket resulted in 18 more positive cases.

It added that active case detection was ongoing to trace all close contacts, including family members and social contacts of the cases.

The committee also said the Tabong cluster in Bau was declared to have ended after reporting no new cases in the last 28 days.

It said there were 29 active clusters in the state, with new cases detected in five of them.

On the latest fatality, the committee said a 64-year-old woman died on March 14 at Sibu Hospital, where she was referred from Kapit Hospital after testing positive on Feb 25. She had comorbidities of chronic kidney disease, hypertension and gout.

Of the new cases, the committee said Sibu district reported the highest number with 65, followed by Miri (40), Bintulu (36), Betong (23), Kuching (22), Julau (21), Song (14), Kapit and Subis (eight each), Bau and Meradong (four each), Sarikei (three), Samarahan (two) and Serian (one).

This takes the state's tally of confirmed cases to 12,702, with 91 fatalities.