KOTA KINABALU: The Tun Fuad Stephens and Ujana Rimba public parks, which were opened on Thursday (July 15) and Friday (July 16), have been ordered to shut again.

       "The parks will be closed until further notice," said Kota Kinabalu City Mayor Noorliza Awang Alip, adding the closure was due to the recent spike in Covid-19 cases in the state capital.

       In a notice, City Hall said it will also be temporarily closing the central market in phases over the next five days from July 19.

       The fish market, the UNHCR market (Filipino market), the fruits and sundry stalls market as well as the wholesale market at the central market will be closed to carry out cleaning and disinfection works.

       From July 24 to 28, the meat markets selling beef and pork as well as the food stalls on the first floor of the market would also be closed for cleaning.

       The ground floor of the central market would be closed from July 29 to Aug 2.

       In a tweet earlier Saturday (July 17), state Covid-19 spokesman Datuk Seri Masidi Manjun said that new Covid-19 cases in Sabah have doubled from 326 on Friday to 647 in the last 24 hours.

       He said that 287 cases, or 44.4%, were from existing clusters while 220 (34%) are from close contact screenings.

       "Kota Kinabalu recorded 312 new cases of which 204 were from the Kepayan prison.

       "A total of 78 cases were from Tawau, Keningau (39), Kudat (35), Sandakan (33), Sipitang (25) and Beaufort (24)," he said.

       According to Masidi, the increasing numbers were due to stepped up community tracing and testing in existing clusters.