Latest local Covid-19 case visited Southern Islands in large group

SINGAPORE - The sole locally-transmitted Covid-19 case on Monday (Dec 21) was a Singaporean woman who tested positive before a scheduled cruise trip, said the Ministry of Health (MOH).

The ministry added that on Dec 14, the 39-year-old woman and her family had gone on a Southern Islands tour with two other families, and that their group had 12 persons in all.

This is seven more than the group of five allowed in phase two after the circuit breaker.

MOH said investigations are ongoing to assess if there was any breach of the relevant safe management measures.

The woman was asymptomatic and her case is currently not linked to any other cases. She was taken in an ambulance to the National Centre for Infectious Diseases the day after her test when it returned positive for Covid-19 infection.

The National Public Health Laboratory has run further tests to verify that she has Covid-19, and MOH said her serological test result is pending. A positive serological test indicates a likely past infection.

The woman lives in Jurong West Street 93, and went to work at Ruising Chemicals in 18 Boon Lay Way before her test result was confirmed.

Epidemiological investigations are in progress.

In the meantime, all her identified close contacts, including family members and co-workers, have been isolated and placed on quarantine and will be tested at the start and end of their quarantine period.

MOH also announced nine imported cases on Monday, taking Singapore's total to 58,432.

Of these, three are Singaporeans who returned from the United Kingdom and India.

Another two are work permit holders currently employed here who arrived from Indonesia and Myanmar.

The sixth imported case is a student's pass holder who arrived from Myanmar.

The remaining three cases are short-term visit pass holders who are crew members of separate vessels which arrived from Indonesia. They had not disembarked from their ships until they were taken to a quarantine facility or hospital, said MOH.

All nine imported cases had been placed on stay-home notices or isolated on arrival in Singapore and were tested while in quarantine.

No new cases from within worker's dormitories were announced on Monday.

Meanwhile, along with the announcement of a new case from the community, MOH added several locations to the list of places visited by infectious Covid-19 patients, including Anchorpoint Shopping Centre, Takashimaya in Ngee Ann City and Raffles City Shopping Centre.

MOH provides the list of locations that infectious Covid-19 patients visited for at least 30 minutes to get people who were at those places at the same time to monitor their health closely for two weeks from the date of their visit.

The full list of locations and times can be found on the gov.sg website.

It has said that close contacts would already have been notified and that there is no need to avoid these places as they would have been cleaned if necessary.

Overall, the number of new cases in the community has remained low, with a total of one case in the past week who is currently unlinked.

With eight cases discharged on Monday, 58,272 patients have fully recovered from the disease.

A total of 46 patients remain in hospital, with none in intensive care, while 70 are recuperating in community facilities.

Singapore has had 29 deaths from Covid-19 complications, while 15 who tested positive have died of other causes.

This article was first published in The Straits Times. Permission required for reproduction.