No Hari Raya, Harvest festival open houses in Sabah

 By Olivia Miwil - May 10, 2021 @ 10:16am

Sabah Community Development and People's wellbeing minister Shahelmy Yahya (second gfrom left) presenting Hari Raya cookies to media practitioners at Wisma Tun Fuad Stephens. - NSTP/OLIVIA MIWIL.

KOTA KINABALU: The Sabah Cabinet has agreed that there should be no open houses during Hari Raya Aidilfitri and the month-long Harvest festival.

State Community Development and People's Wellbeing minister Shahelmy Yahya said that despite Sabah having recorded a steady trend of Covid-19 infection, the people still have to stay vigilant.

Sabah's daily Covid-19 cases have been fluctuating between double and triple digits depending on new clusters.

"We have to be careful as we can see what happened in India (where its healthcare system could not cope with an abrupt surge in Covid-19 cases).

"To prevent a similar situation from happening, the state has restricted movement to cross districts instead of zones that cover more districts.

"The purpose of the movement restriction is not to cause trouble nor deny people from celebrating Hari Raya, but it is for the safety of all and to prevent the spread of infection," he said during a Hari Raya cookies handover to media practitioners programme at Wisma Tun Fuad Stephens here.

Shahelmy added that over a year of dealing with the pandemic, the authorities are aware that people's movement and social gatherings have been the causes of Covid-19 spike.

He said people should make the sacrifice and abide by the movement restriction order to contain the infection and also to take Covid-19 vaccine.

On the state-level inoculation programme, Shahelmy said the first phase has achieved its target where at least 42,000 frontliners received two doses of vaccines.

As for the viralled message that people could walk in to get their vaccines, he rectified that it was for registration purposes particularly for senior citizens, those with comorbidities and disabled people.

"Some had their vaccination on the same day due to others missing their appointments that day.

"It is especially for Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines which have to be used immediately due to its shelf life, it has to be given or else it would have to be discarded," he said, urging people to turn up upon getting their appointments.

As of yesterday, 50,065 people have received two doses of Covid-19 vaccines, while for the second phase, 2,061 have received their first dose.