KOTA KINABALU: Sabah's sudden spike in cases is due to many clusters and has nothing to do with any variant of concern (VOC), says state Covid-19 spokesman Datuk Seri Masidi Manjun.

       "For Sabah, it’s the normal Covid-19 strain but there are just too many clusters," Masidi said on Wednesday (July 21) when commenting on the high infectivity rate in Sabah that saw its R0 recorded at 1.25.

       "Our targeted approach is to nip the problem in the bud by immediately trying to control the spread of the infection by localised enhanced movement control order," he said, explaining Sabah's recent increase from an average of about 300 to more than 600 in the past few days.

       "The prison clusters (Kepayan in Kota Kinabalu and Tawau) have pushed Sabah’s statistics to abnormally high figures," said Masidi, who is state Local Government and Housing Minister cum state Finance Minister II.

       Masidi said he believed steps were being taken by the prison authorities and the state Health Department to control the situation.

       "Prisons are high-security areas where access is limited. I believe the prison authority is trying its best to manage the pandemic with the assistance of the Sabah Health Department," he said when asked if the situation at the prisons was under control.

       For Wednesday, Masidi said the new cases dropped to 474 from 657 recorded on Tuesday (July 20).

       "We have a drop of 183 cases and this is because there were fewer positive cases from the prison clusters," he said.

       On Wednesday, Kota Kinabalu recorded 128 new cases followed by Beaufort (76), Tawau (36), Keningau (24) Ranau (22), Tuaran and Sipitang (19 each), Putatan (18), Beluran (15), Kudat (14) and Kota Belud (12).