It is also the first time the state has breached the 1,000 mark this year, and just 133 cases shy of the all-time high of 1,199 recorded on Nov 6 last year.
Sabah local government and housing minister Masidi Manjun attributed the sudden spike to complacency in following the SOPs, which could also be due to lockdown fatigue.
Some 60% of today’s cases, or 640, come from close contact screenings, with the state capital contributing the highest in community transmissions at 125 cases.
“That’s why we need to change strategies and focus more on accelerated vaccination and enforcement of SOPs,” he told FMT.
“I’ve just had a meeting with the state and federal secretaries, police commissioner, Sabah army chief, and the directors of the state health department and state National Security Council (MKN).
“We have agreed on a new policy direction which will be announced soon. The focus is now on accelerating vaccinations and not just screening.”
Masidi, who is Sabah’s official Covid-19 spokesman, said another full lockdown is not out of the question although that may be further down the list.
“We won’t rule out a lockdown but the virus is now in the community – every one of us is now a potential virus carrier. Lockdown is no longer the most effective response.
“It worked well the first time because the infection was localised but not now. When we had the lockdown for the first time, vaccines were not yet available.
“A lockdown has also ceased to be the only option considering the dire situation of the economy. People have lost their jobs and hardly have any income.
“So we need to balance lives and livelihoods. The government’s capacity to give financial assistance is now also somewhat limited,” Masidi said.
He added many countries had also abandoned the lockdown strategy, and the better response was accelerated vaccination and total compliance of SOPs.
Masidi had previously warned that cases could rise in the coming days as mass screenings were carried out, adding that cases could be higher due to the breakdown in compliance by the public to the movement restriction rules.
Two new clusters were also detected today namely the Batu 2 cluster in Tawau and Jalan Gunsapau cluster in Ranau.
Daily cases in Sabah have fluctuated between 100 and 300 cases between May and mid-July but on July 17, the infections suddenly rose to 647 cases.
Almost half the cases, or 312, were detected in Kota Kinabalu, mostly from the Kepayan prison cluster (Tembok Kota Kinabalu cluster).
Community transmission accounted for 34% of the overall infections.
The following days saw the prison clusters including in Tawau and mass screenings at other existing clusters contributing to an escalation of cases.
The number of cases have remained above 500 until today, except for 474 cases on July 21 and 479 on July 22.
New infections from the prison clusters started to ease on July 21 but on the same day, community transmissions started picking up, with the majority detected in the state capital, and are still the primary source of new cases to this day.
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