Covid-19: Sarawak extending MCO to June 14

KUCHING: Sarawak will extend its movement control order by three days to June 14 to be in line with the Federal Government's lockdown.

The state disaster management committee made the decision to coordinate the dates in a meeting on Monday (May 31).

The MCO in Sarawak was originally scheduled to be in place from May 29 to June 11 while the federal lockdown runs from June 1 to 14.

The committee also said the standard operating procedures (SOP) for Sarawak's MCO would be enhanced with several new measures.

These include reducing the limit of people in private vehicles from three to two and changing the use of zones to districts.

"We have studied the SOP issued by the National Security Council for the federal lockdown and decided that Sarawak will continue to enforce its existing SOP with some enhancements," the committee said in a statement on Monday.

It added that the list of essential services in the SOP would also be adjusted.

This comes as Sarawak reported 654 new Covid-19 cases and a record high of 10 deaths on Monday.

The urban districts of Kuching, Sibu and Miri accounted for 405 or 61.9% of the new cases while 24 other districts recorded between one and 54 cases each, taking the state's cumulative tally to 47,329.

The latest fatalities were four women and six men aged from 50 to 78, taking the death toll to 294.

The committee also said three new clusters were identified in Bau, Bintulu and Kuching.

In Bau, the Jalan Jambusan-Sunchar cluster was traced to Hari Raya visits involving four families from Taman Mutiara, Kampung Melayu Baru, Taman Mawar and Kampung Masjid Bau.

It currently has 18 confirmed cases from 243 individuals screened, with 60 testing negative and 165 awaiting results.

The Jalan Coastal Bintulu-Miri in Bintulu and Muara Tabuan cluster in Kuching are workplace clusters with 49 and 152 confirmed cases respectively to date.