60 festive clusters from Hari Raya, Gawai and it’s worrying: Health DG

PUTRAJAYA, June 6 – The Ministry of Health on Thursday said 60 clusters have been detected from the recent Hari Raya Aidifitri (58 clusters) and Hari Gawai (two clusters) festive period between May 13 and June 10.

In its Facebook posting Thursday it said these clusters were reported to the National Crisis Preparedness and Response Centre.

A total of 13,023 individuals were screened from this cluster, where 3,511 of them tested positive for the COVID-19.

From the 3,511 cases, there were 20 deaths while 11 of them are still under treatment at the Intensive Care Units.

Among the states, Sabah recorded the highest number of festive clusters with 11 followed by Sarawak with eight and Kedah with seven.

Health Director General Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the increased number of festive clusters were worrying, considering the short period of time it had taken for the spread and that it happened during the Movement Control Order (MCO) period.

If people continue to be careless and don’t learn from what has happened with the interstate and cross district travels and visits during the recent festive period, the number of cases will continue to go up and this trend of spike in cases will be seen again during other festive periods, he said.

Urging people to be more conscious and to stay home unless it is necessary to go out, he said the responsibility was with all parties to ensure that the vulnerable groups, especially elderly people are not exposed to the virus.

He also urged people to register for vaccination to reach a herd community situation fast.

As of Thursday, June 10, Malaysia reported a total of 5,671 new cases bringing the total number of cases to 639,562. Active cases amounted to 79,848. Seventy-three people also lost their lives in the said 24-hour period bringing the number of deaths to 3,684 while 7,325 people recovered.

A total of 556,030 people have recovered from the virus so far.