KUCHING, Aug 20 — The Sarawak Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) today said stringent standard operating procedures (SOPs) will be re-imposed in Kuching, Samarahan and Serian Divisions following a spike in their number of Covid-19 cases.

It said these will be reimplemented from 12.01am on August 22 to 11.50pm on August 29.

The SDMC said under the SOPs, dine-ins at eating outlets and restaurants are not allowed while business operations will be shortened from 5am to 8pm.

“Individuals or groups of people are not allowed to be in public places after 10pm without any reasonable cause,” it said in a statement.

It said the decision to reintroduce the stringent SOPs was made at its meeting today.

The districts in the three divisions, commonly identified as the southern zone of Sarawak, are Kuching, Bau, Lundu, Samarahan,  Asajaya, Simunjan, Serian and Tebedu.

The SDMC said Kuching district recorded the highest single day at 1,601 cases today, out of 2,548 cases for Sarawak.

Serian district came second with 240 cases, Bau district with 131 cases, Samarahan district wo116 cases, Lundu 94, Simunjan 60 and Tebedu 41.

The SDMC said Sibu district recorded 39 cases, Bintulu 37, Belaga 36, Pusa 30, Mukah and Sri Aman 22 each while the rest of the districts recorded less than 15 or even zero new cases.

It said a new Covid-19 cluster at Long Urun in Belaga district has been declared, where 109 individuals have been tested positive for Covid-19 while the results on laboratory tests on 30 others are still pending.