Coronavirus: Man who met large group for sports among 6 new community cases

Essential workers waiting to be screened for Covid-19 at the regional screening centre at The Float @ Marina Bay on June 9, 2020. ST PHOTO: JASON QUAH

SINGAPORE - A man among the six community cases announced on Friday (June 26) met a large group of people for sports and social activities.

The Ministry of Health (MOH) said that it will be investigating the case, and that the man's behaviour increases the risk of transmission and has resulted in his contacts being quarantined.

"We advise the public to abide by the spirit of the rule to limit social gatherings to not more than five persons," it said.

When asked, MOH would not say which new community case met the large group of people.

The ministry said that two of the six community cases are from the public health sector.

One of them is a 23-year-old Singaporean who is a nurse at Ng Teng Fong General Hospital (NTFGH) and was confirmed to have Covid-19 on Thursday. He had not gone to work since the onset of symptoms on Monday.

He is linked to a previously announced case and is hospitalised at NTFGH.

The second case is a 27-year-old Singaporean who works at Vanguard Senior Care Centre in Woodlands who is currently unlinked to other cases.

She is asymptomatic and was confirmed to have the virus on Thursday, and is currently warded at the National Centre for Infectious Diseases.

The ministry said she is also likely to be a case of a past infection and is no longer infectious.

In a separate statement, the Agency for Integrated Care (AIC) said that the woman has been mostly working from home since the circuit breaker period, but was last at the centre on Thursday, the same day she was tested positive.

The centre is located in the same building as Vanguard Woodlands Care Home but are served by separate teams who have not been in contact since before the circuit breaker, AIC said.

It added that the woman did not have any contact with the staff and clients who use the centre's community rehabilitation services which reopened on June 15.

The agency said contact tracing is ongoing and those who had close contact with the staff will be quarantined and tested. The centre has also been cleaned and disinfected to re-open next Monday (June 29).

MOH said that from June 3, it has been conducting surveillance tests for non-residential community care staff in settings such as kidney dialysis centres, home care services, day hospices, and senior care centres. To date, more than 5,500 out of an estimated 5,700 staff have been tested and she is the only one who tested positive.

The remaining community cases are three Singaporeans and a work pass holder who is an Indian national.

One of these patients had been picked up as a result of the ministry's proactive surveillance and screening as he works at a dormitory, and two had already been placed on quarantine.

The work pass holder is a 48-year-old man who is linked to the cluster at Keppel Shipyard.

Meanwhile, Safra Mount Faber, Jurong East Sports Centre, Pearl's Hill 34 at 34 Upper Cross Street, Outram Park Ya Hua Rou Gu Cha at 7 Keppel Road and People's Park Centre have been added to the list of public places visited by Covid-19 patients while they were still infectious.

Those who were there at the same time as the patients should monitor their health closely for two weeks from the date of their visit.

The ministry provides this list of locations that Covid-19 patients have visited for more than 30 minutes as a precaution to get those who were at these places to monitor their health closely for two weeks from the date of their visit.

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 needed.

The full list and times the patients visited can be found on MOH's website.

Migrant workers living in dormitories make up the remaining 213 cases, taking Singapore's total to 42,955.

The MOH also announced new cluster at a dormitory at 143 Tuas View Square.

The average number of new daily community cases has come up from four cases per day two weeks ago to five in the past week. The average unlinked community cases per day has remained stable at two per day over the same period.

With 221 cases discharged on Friday, 36,814 patients, or about 86 per cent of those infected, have fully recovered from the disease.

A total of 183 patients remain in hospital, including one in the intensive care unit, while 5,921 are recuperating in community facilities.

Singapore has had 26 deaths from Covid-19 complications, while 11 who tested positive have died of other causes.

Join ST's WhatsApp Channel and get the latest news and must-reads.