KOTA KINABALU: Sabah is not likely to lift or relax its inter-district travel ban yet, even for those who have completed their Covid-19 vaccinations, especially in light of a large number of Covid-19 cases and low vaccination rates, says the state National Security Council (NSC).

       Sabah NSC director Sitti Saleha Habib Yussof said the various agencies including the state government, Sabah Health Department and the state disaster management committee will have to consider daily cases and various factors to even consider lifting the ban.

       “For now, this is not yet part of our discussions or consideration,” she said when contacted Tuesday (Aug 17).

       Only about 47.3% eligible adults in Sabah have received their first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine while 23.6% have completed their doses as of Monday (Aug 16).

       Sitti said the possibility of the ban being lifted is when herd immunity, or having 80% of Sabah’s eligible population inoculated is almost achieved and daily Covid-19 cases have reduced drastically over a continuous period of time.

       She explained that transmission of the virus is still possible to and from fully vaccinated individuals, though the risk of them suffering more severe symptoms was much lower.

       This comes after many began to question the rationale behind not even allowing the fully vaccinated to cross districts to visit parents and relatives who are also fully vaccinated despite the government earlier saying that more movements will be made possible for the fully inoculated.

       “Due to the low vaccination rate in Sabah, the risk of the non-vaccinated getting infected and suffering severe effects is still high and this is among the main reasons why lifting the inter-district travel ban is not yet considered,” Sitti said.

       She urged the public to get vaccinated and to help towards achieving herd immunity in the state.

       Last week, Sabah Chief Minister Datuk Seri Hajiji Noor had also explained that the state government’s decision to maintain inter-district travel restriction is due to the continuing spike in new Covid-19 cases.

       He said despite efforts by the authorities to impose enhanced movement control order (MCO) at affected localities among others, the numbers continued to rise.

       Sabah has been seeing a breach of over 1,000 cases and even 2,000 cases over the past few weeks.

       Sabah recorded a total of 1, 728 new daily cases on Aug 16.