Negeri patient contracts Covid-19 after exposure during Hari Raya visit

CORONAVIRUS | A patient from Negeri Sembilan contracted Covid-19 after making a house visit on the first day of Hari Raya Aidilfitri.

The patient - a Malaysian - has been identified as a close contact of "Case 7756".

In his daily Covid-19 briefing this evening, Health Ministry Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said that the patient was one of the 38 new local transmissions detected as of noon today.

“One case is from the close contact screenings done for Case 7756 from Negri Sembilan.

“Contact happened during visiting activities on the first day of Hari Raya (May 24),” he said.

Pressed for more details, the top official shared that active case detection for the index case was underway.

“We have started our active case detection and it is still ongoing. So for us, we will continue to screen those who had visited (Case 7756) and had exposure to the positive case,” Noor Hisham said.

Prior to Hari Raya, he had advised the public to forego house visits and hand greetings to reduce the risk of infection.

Under the government’s standard operating procedure, house visits were only permitted on the first day and limited to 20 people for the whole day.

A total of of 43 Covid-19 cases were reported today - 38 local transmissions and five imported cases.

Of the 38 local transmissions, 23 are non-citizens while 15 are citizens.

No barber cluster for now

As for the barber who contracted Covid-19, Noor Hisham shared that none of his customers had been found with the virus thus far.

“As of now, we do not have a cluster. Only one person (the barber) has tested positive,” he said when asked.

Aside from making surreptitious house calls during the movement control order (MCO) period, he said today that the barber had also proceeded to serve customers before receiving his test results.

“The test results were not back yet but he continued working,” he said.

Noor Hisham revealed yesterday that the barber had performed house-to-house haircuts for 21 clients during the MCO despite it being illegal to do so.

He had served another 15 clients when the barbershop re-opened on June 10. He had undergone a Covid-19 test on the same day and received the result the following day.

A total of 40 of his close contacts have been identified, screened and instructed to undergo home quarantine.

Keep up with the latest information on the outbreak in the country with Malaysiakini's free Covid-19 tracker.

Malaysiakini is providing free access to the most important updates on the coronavirus pandemic. You can find them here.

Help keep independent media alive - subscribe to Malaysiakini.