Covid-19: Wedding sparks fresh cluster as Sabah cases hit four-digit mark

KOTA KINABALU: A 66-year-old man who attended a wedding ceremony has sparked the state's latest cluster as Sabah hit 1,205 new Covid-19 cases on Saturday (Feb 5), the highest since September last year.

Sabah Covid-19 spokesman Datuk Seri Masidi Manjun said that the Kg Weston cluster in Beaufort district involved an index case who had attended the wedding on Jan 29.

He was found positive through a PCR test on Feb 3 at the Penampang Health Clinic after he suffered from fever, cough and body aches since Jan 30.

Masidi said the cluster involved family members from Kg Lubok and Kg Menengah in Weston.

So far the total number of positive cased related to the community cluster is 27 people of which 22 were reported on Saturday.

Masidi said that the number of new daily cases in the past three days had tripled.

He said that four districts recorded three-digit cases - Sandakan (230), Kota Kinabalu (213), Penampang (113) and Tuaran (113).

A total of 13 districts recorded cases in the double-digits with six of them having more than 50 each - Papar (84), Kota Marudu (74), Beaufort (62), Ranau (55) Lahad Datu (53) and Tawau (52).

He said only Kalabakan in southwestern Sabah did not record any new cases.

"The new cases from sporadic infections accounted to 527 or 43.7% of today's cases," he said.

Masidi said that the statistics show that the virus is already entrenched in the community and will result in a faster and more widespread rate of infection.

"It is expected that the number of daily cases will continue to rise in the near future. It will get worse before it gets better," he added.

Masidi noted that a total of 1,198 out of the 1,205 new cases were in Category 1 and 2 while there were three cases in Category 3, one case in Category 4 and three cases in Category 5.

He also said that 30 children (ages 5-11 years) were vaccinated under the children immunisation programme since Feb 3. They will be given two doses after a two-week interval.