KUALA LUMPUR (Oct 20): Selangor has been seeing a big rise in Covid-19 cases since the end of last month after people returned to the state from Sabah, said Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.
"For this third wave of [infections], Selangor began to see a spike in cases at the end of September 2020, after the entry and return of visitors from Sabah," Noor Hisham said at a media briefing today.
He said the first cluster detected in Selangor during the third wave was on Sept 28, namely the Jalan Apas cluster in Klang.
The index patients of this cluster have been identified to be a married couple who travelled to Tawau and Semporna in Sabah from Sept 13 to Sept 16.
"Selangor started to see an increase in locally transmitted cases from Oct 2 and the number increased consistently until today," said the D-G.
In the 24 hours as of noon today, Selangor recorded 132 positive cases, bringing the state's Covid-19 tally to 3,489 — the state with the second highest confirmed infections after Sabah, which has 8,755 infections to date.
Noor Hisham said there are 26 active clusters in Selangor, of which 18 are local infection clusters, while eight clusters are linked to individuals returning from Sabah.
"Six clusters reported on Oct 11 were linked to local transmissions.
"Nine of the 26 clusters were linked to the spread of Covid-19 infections at the workplace, and one cluster was linked to a shopping mall," he said.
He added: "This situation is due to population density and high movement rate among the people of Selangor as well as visitors to the state."
Selangor is currently under a two-week Conditional Movement Control Order (CMCO), which came into effect on Oct 14.
Earlier today, Senior Minister (Security Cluster) Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob announced that public and private sector employees at management and supervisory levels in areas currently placed under the CMCO must work from home with effect from Oct 22.
This initiative was taken to restrict the movements of employees as part of efforts to contain the Covid-19 pandemic.
Commenting on the announcement, Noor Hisham said the move is in line with the government's strategy to allow the economic sectors to function while tightening the social sectors in order to bring down the number of cases.
"If we can reduce and control the movements of people especially in Selangor and stay at home then we can break the chain of [Covid-19] transmissions," he said.
Malaysia recorded 862 new Covid-19 cases today, raising the total number todate to 22,225.
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