Sabah local government and housing minister Masidi Manjun said close contact tracing at the island, which is about a 10-minute boat ride from Kota Kinabalu, found 35 people were infected.

“Half of Kota Kinabalu’s 70 cases comes from Pulau Gaya,” he said, in his Twitter account.

Targeted screening at the island was also the main contributor to the sharp increase in Covid-19 cases in Kota Kinabalu on Sunday.

He said the city recorded 120 cases that day, an increase of 48 cases from the day before, with 92 cases arising from the targeted screenings in Kampung Laban (62 cases) and Kampung Pondo (30), both in Pulau Gaya.

However, the number of cases in the city dropped to 89 yesterday.

Masidi also said that targeted screenings in southwestern Beaufort pushed the district’s cases to 57 in the last 24 hours.

He added that Tawau recorded 21 new cases while Putatan detected 18 and Penampang 12, adding other districts either recorded only single-digit cases or no infections at all.

“Close contacts and targeted screenings contributed 170 new cases to Sabah’s total of 225 (today),” said Masidi, who is also the state government’s official spokesman on Covid-19.

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