SINGAPORE - Retail stores visited by a group of Chinese tourists linked to the nation's first local cluster of coronavirus infection appear to have been hit by the outbreak.
Four of the six places visited by the tour group during their stay from Jan 22 to 23 were shuttered when The Straits Times visited them on Thursday (Feb 6), while the other two were deserted.
The Ministry of Health (MOH) announced on Wednesday that the tour group - linked to seven cases so far - had visited these places during their stay from Jan 22 to 23.
One of them was the Diamond Industries Jewellery Company, a jewellery store located in the PSA Vista office building in Harbour Drive.
ST observed masked security personnel conducting temperature checks on all visitors outside the building entrance. When asked about the closure of the jewellery store in the building, a security staff member declined to comment.
The store was closed after one of its employees, a 40-year-old local patient, was confirmed with the virus on Tuesday.
His wife, a 32-year-old Singapore citizen, was the group's tour guide, and had tested positive for the virus on the same day.
She had also taken the group to Yong Thai Hang, a Chinese health products shop in Lavender, whose two employees also contracted the virus.
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ST visited two restaurants where the group had dined - Meeting You Restaurant at 14 Hamilton Road and Royal Dragon Restaurant at 2 Havelock Road - during lunchtime but found them closed.
While D'Resort at Downtown East and T Galleria by DFS were open, both were relatively empty, aside from a few odd tourists wearing masks.
A DFS spokesman shared that DFS had "temporarily closed the store for professional deep-cleaning and decontamination" after MOH confirmed that the tour group visited the departmental store during their two-day stay.
MOH had noted in a press statement released on Wednesday that nearly 14 days have passed since the tourists visited these places.
It has reached out to 142 contacts and reported that "all but one are well". It said "the person has been isolated as a suspect case and test results are pending".
The tour group went to Malaysia before returning to Singapore via the Woodlands Checkpoint at 3am on Jan 27. They left at 6am from Changi Airport that same day.
Contact tracing of the crew and other passengers from the group's departing flight has also been conducted.
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This article was first published in The Straits Times. Permission required for reproduction.
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