Covid-19 cluster detected at police training centre in Jalan Semarak
A cluster of Covid-19 cases has been detected at the Malaysian Police Training Centre (Pulapol) on Jalan Sultan Yahya Petra, formerly known as Jalan Semarak, in Kuala Lumpur.
Yesterday, the Health Ministry identified the Jalan Yahya cluster located at this road which had eight cases at the time of announcement.
The ministry said it involved a training institute at Jalan Sultan Yahya Petra in the district of Tititwangsa but it did not identify the institute.
Malaysiakini has independently verified that it is Pulapol, where close contact screening was conducted yesterday.
The Health Ministry said the cluster was first detected on Jan 26, through symptomatic screening of a 58-year-old man.
The same day, one of his social contacts tested positive for Covid-19, while the next day six others were found to be infected.
Up to yesterday, 100 individuals have been screened for Covid-19.
Today, the Inland Revenue Board said that its state director's office on the other end of the same road, is closed starting tomorrow for sanitation, after Covid-19 cases were detected.
Operations will resume on Feb 2.
Pulapol is not the only training institute where a cluster was announced yesterday.
Some 13 infected students of a training centre at Jalan Pudu made up the Jalan Pudu cluster.
However, as Jalan Pudu is a major road in Kuala Lumpur spanning several kilometres, the exact training centre the Health Ministry was referring to was not easily identified.
Although the Health Ministry recently started identifying road names or residential areas where clusters are located, it still refrains from pinpointing the exact businesses, education institutions or buildings.
It had up to last year refused to provide any location details, other than the district name, to avoid stigma.
However, some state health departments are releasing information down to sub-district and locality level.
The Sarawak Disaster Management Committee routinely releases the names of businesses, buildings and the time when Covid-19 patients in Sarawak visited those locations prior to testing positive.
Those who checked in using MySejahtera at those locations in the same time period would also receive a notification on the app.
The state government said this was done so that those who may be exposed could monitor themselves for symptoms and come forward for screening, instead of having to wait for contact tracers from the local Health Department to call.
