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LABUAN: The Labuan Economic Sector Coalition (LESC) is urging the local community to stay calm amid reports of suspected Mu and Lambda Covid-19 variants being detected in Labuan, as LESC believes it to be sensationalised with fear-mongering tactics.

The coalition was responding to recent reports of Labuan Health Director Dr Ismuni Bohari (pic) who said one of the cases is feared to trigger high infections and that the samples were sent to the peninsula for analysis.

“LESC would like to inform the community that based on Chinese newspaper reports on Saturday, Health Director-General Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham has responded that the cases are not of the Mu or Lambda variants.

“The news of suspected Mu and Lambda Variants in Labuan was heavily circulated on social media and had caused terror and fear in the hearts and minds of society.

“Unnecessary blame was hurled towards the economic sector, particularly the shipping industry, as the report was not written in detail.

“Based on internal reports, we learned that the two cases concerned had a Cycle Threshold (CT) Load 28 and 32 respectively, and we were informed that such values are considered Post Infectious,” said LESC in a statement, Saturday.

LESC also assured the public that amidst the reopening of the economy, its members have been proactive in ensuring that precautionary measures are being taken to curb the spread of Covid-19 and eliminate risk.

Meanwhile, LESC reasoned that mandatory RT-PCR testing as part of standard operating procedures (SOP) within the shipping industry and vessel crew would likely detect more cases.

“This SOP is only implemented in Labuan’s (ports). Labuanites should be realistic and expect that there will be cases detected whenever there is a vessel call to Labuan.

“LESC couldn’t imagine the number of cases that could be detected if similar SOPs are implemented at other ports throughout Malaysia, especially since there are more vessel calls to other ports compared to Labuan,” it said.

As such, LESC questioned the need for Labuan to be put under stringent procedures considering it has achieved herd immunity before other States, especially when Labuan is not a national loading centre in Malaysia.

“We would like to urge the Government to include Labuan in Annex 9, to ensure seamless coordination and planning as Malaysia is anticipating for Covid-19 to be declared as endemic in the near future.

“LESC finds that the exemption of Labuan on Annex 9 has passed its due date. We have achieved herd immunity and currently, vaccination rollouts to teenagers is ongoing.

“At this stage, we also hope for the Labuan Disaster Management Committee’s (LDMC) to be equally proactive by entertaining our request to start having frequent dialogues and cooperation to fight Covid-19 together, as we find the balance between health, economy and our wellbeing as envisioned by our government,” said the coalition.