Kudos to hoteliers in Sibu to assist in providing quarantine facilities to authorities

Kudos to the owners and management of three local hotels in Sibu which have agreed in principle to use their premises as quarantine centres for Covid19 persons-under-surveillance (PUS).

The local hoteliers are from Sarawak Central Region Hotels Association and they would  be providing an additional 400 rooms that should be available to take in returnees from outside Sarawak when the movement control order (MCO) in Sibu is lifted.

 

Currently there are three hotels in Sibu that are being used by the relevant authorities as quarantine centres with a total of 309 rooms and they are namely Premier Hotel, Mawan Hotel and Sarawak Hotel.

With more hotels owners offering their hotels as quarantine centres in Sibu, the authorities  will have more accommodation facilities to use when eventually flights from outside Sarawak are resumed in the near future.

Currently, there are no flights into Sibu during the MCO period except for internal flights where PUS are people who returned to Sarawak via Sibu Airport and they are required to undergo 14 days of quarantine.

On same matter, the next two weeks will be crucial to determine if Sibu Division can curb the spread of Covid19 which is why the public must strictly comply with the Movement Control Order (MCO). 

The State Government through Sarawak Disaster Management Committee (SDMC), State Health Department and Ministry of Health (MOH) need everyone of us to work together to curb the spread of the virus. In central zone itself, the authorities have recently locked down 19 longhouses in Pasai Siong area to curb the Covid19 from spreading locally.

Even though our local folks in the affected areas will not move about freely but it is also important for those without the disease not to come into close contact with them. It is therefore important to get our local folks to stay at home as much as possible and to comply with the Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) stipulated by the relevant authorities during these challenging times.

 

Calling on our local folks to be vigilant due to severe weather and flood conditions

In view of the present flood situation, our local folks were re­minded to be vig­i­lant through­out this week due to se­vere weather con­di­tions. In line with this, our Right Honourable Chief Minister has urged the peo­ple to be strong and pre­pared for evac­u­a­tion to tem­po­rary evac­u­a­tion cen­tres should their homes get in­un­dated, for their own safety. 

According to him, for this week the peo­ple will need to re­main vig­i­lant and wary of the sit­u­a­tion around them and at the same time, the flood vic­tims who were evac­u­ated to tem­po­rary evac­u­a­tion cen­tres were reminded to fol­low the stan­dard op­er­at­ing pro­ce­dures (SOP) to curb the spread of Covid19. Abang Johari said the process of evac­u­at­ing flood vic­tims to tem­po­rary flood evac­u­a­tion cen­tres in the state was closely mon­i­tored by the State Health De­part­ment and rel­e­vant agen­cies. 

That is why we are care­ful dur­ing the flood, and we do health screen­ing when the flood vic­tims were evacuated. When asked about spe­cial as­sis­tance for flood vic­tims, our Chief Minister said the state gov­ern­ment would con­sider the matter on the ad­vice by the State Disas­ter Man­age­ment Committee. On the num­ber of flood vic­tims in Kuching di­vi­sion, Abang Jo­hari said there were a to­tal of 2,268 flood vic­tims who had been placed at 30 tem­po­rary evac­u­a­tion cen­tres. Of that fig­ure, 1,949 were at 17 cen­tres in Kuching dis­trict while the re­main­ing 319 were at 13 cen­tres in Bau dis­trict.

Sarawak to abide the Emer­gency procla­ma­tion to curb the Covid-19 pan­demic

We echo what our Right Honourable Chief Min­is­ter's statement on Sarawak's state elec­tion that can be held as soon as the Emer­gency procla­ma­tion to curb the Covid-19 pan­demic is re­voked.

Datuk Pat­inggi Abang Jo­hari Tun Openg who was interviewed by our local media on this matter had expressed his con­fi­dence that Sarawak abides and re­spects the Yang di-Per­tuan Agong AlSul­tan Ab­dul­lah Ri’ay­atud­din AlMustafa Bil­lah Shah’s de­ci­sion, adding that the Emer­gency was made in ac­cor­dance with the Fed­eral Con­sti­tu­tion.

How­ever, our Chief Minister had mentioned Sarawak would be able to con­duct the 12th State Elec­tion or PRN12 when the Covid-19 pan­demic in the state is brought un­der con­trol. If the sit­u­a­tion im­proves and the Agong is con­fi­dent that the sit­u­a­tion has im­proved, our Yang Dipertuan Agong can de­clare an­other procla­ma­tion which only in­volves cer­tain ar­eas (states) in Malaysia.

The Chief Minister had said the sharp in­crease in Covid-19 cases in Sarawak was due to the Pa­sai Clus­ter in Sibu, and if it could be stemmed, the pan­demic in the state would be un­der con­trol again. According to him, if we main­tain a high level of dis­ci­pline to com­ply with the SOPs (stan­dard op­er­at­ing pro­ce­dures) and it shows pos­i­tive de­vel­op­ment, the num­ber of cases will def­i­nitely be low­ered and hopefully after that, we can hold elec­tions. The cur­rent term of the Sarawak leg­isla­tive assem­bly will end on June 6, this year.

Thumbs up to recommendations for Pesta Kaamatan and Gawai Dayak harvest festivals to be in Cuti Cuti Malaysia itinerary

Thumbs up to efforts by Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture (Motac) in supporting recommendations for Kaamatan and Gawai Dayak harvest festivals to be included as major festivals in the Cuti-Cuti Malaysia itinerary after good feedbacks received from the public. 

We support MOTAC's Minister, YB Datuk Seri Nancy Shukri who mentioned although Kaamatan and Gawai are public holidays for Sabah and Sarawak but it was important for people of other states to know and understand the culture and traditions behind these two festivals. 

Such initiative will positively shows us of Sabah and Sarawak openness towards every member of our plural society and the strong feeling of unity among the local folks. 

People from outside Borneo ought come and see for themselves the unique culture and tradition on how the harvest festivals are celebrated by the native groups in both states. By including Kaamatan and Gawai in the list of festive holidays, this would allow Malaysians to plan their holidays as well as embrace diversity in the country.

Road users should not take safety for granted

Local leaders including myself had constantly reminded our road users to always comply with safety measures outlined in the standard operating procedures (SOP) when using the ferry services that are available throughout the state. This is of utmost importance to prevent unwanted incidents from happening again in near futre.

We are aware that if the SOP or security measures are complied with and carried out properly, any untoward incidents or tragedies like the one happened at Triso-Sebuyau  Ferry point on new year's day. 

However, it had happened and many lives were lost in this accident, some of the victims were just teenagers and sadly a baby as well. I took the opportunity to extend my deepest condolences to the victim’s family, hoping that they would stay strong throughout this ordeal. 

What had happened was very sad for all Sarawakians because tragedy had claimed the lives of nine members of a family was also heartbreaking for all of us. I also urged the crowd not to rush things when using the ferry services apart from complying with the rules set by the relevant authorities there. I hope all of us have learned a valuable lesson from this tragedy so that to avoid similar tragedies from happening again in the future. We should not take safety for granted because prevention is always better than cure.