Raffles City Shopping Centre, Golden Mile Complex visited by infectious Covid-19 patients

[SINGAPORE] Raffles City Shopping Centre and Golden Mile Complex have been added to the list of places visited by Covid-19 patients while they were still infectious, said the Ministry of Health (MOH) on Thursday (July 23).

For Raffles City Shopping Centre, the location visited in the mall was the Raffles City Market Place, while for Golden Mile Complex it was the Diandin Leluk Thai Restaurant.

Other places added to the list on Thursday include Safra Yishun's Pin Si Restaurant, Sembawang Community Club and the Jurong East sub-branch of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China.

The ministry provides the list of locations and times that infectious Covid-19 patients visited for at least 30 minutes to get those who were at these places at specific periods to monitor their health closely for two weeks from the date of their visit.

MOH 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.

There were 354 new coronavirus cases confirmed on Thursday, taking Singapore's total to 49,098.

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They included eight community cases, comprising four Singaporeans and four work permit holders.

There were also five imported coronavirus cases on Thursday - two permanent residents, two work pass holders and one dependant's pass holder.

They were placed on stay-home notices upon arrival in Singapore from India between July 11 and 12. All were asymptomatic and tested positive on while serving their notices.

Migrant workers living in dormitories made up the 341 remaining cases.

No new clusters were announced on Thursday.

Of the eight cases in the community announced by MOH, four were picked up as a result of the ministry's proactive surveillance and screening, and two had been quarantined.

Two of the community cases announced were linked to previous cases or clusters.

They were tested during quarantine to determine their status, even though they were asymptomatic.

Six of the community cases were unlinked. Of these, three were detected from the ministry's proactive screening of workers in essential services who are living outside dormitories, even though they were asymptomatic.

Two of these three cases are likely to be past infections while the test results for the third patient is pending.

A fourth case was swabbed as part of the ministry's efforts to screen individuals working in frontline Covid-19 operations, and had been detected before the onset of symptoms.

The last two unlinked cases were tested as part of the ministry's community testing efforts. The first was tested under MOH's enhanced community testing for individuals aged 13 and above who are diagnosed with acute respiratory infection when they see a doctor.

The second case was asymptomatic but was referred for a Covid-19 test when she had visited a polyclinic to collect her medication for a pre-existing respiratory condition.

Epidemiological investigations for the unlinked cases are in progress.

The average number of new daily cases in the community during a week has decreased from 12 cases two weeks ago to nine in the past week.

The number of unlinked cases in the community during a week has decreased from the daily average of seven cases two weeks ago to the daily average of five in the past week.

With 220 cases discharged on Thursday, 45,000 patients have fully recovered from the disease.

A total of 137 patients remain in hospital, while 3,919 are recuperating in community facilities. None is in intensive care.

Singapore has had 27 deaths from Covid-19 complications, while 15 who tested positive have died of other causes.

THE STRAITS TIMES