Singapore’s Health Ministry has released more details of the local clusters in Singapore, following the tightening of local measures.
See more: Singapore tightens local and overseas measures in response to increase in community cases
Within the community in the past week, MOH has identified new clusters of infection linked to the cluster at Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH), and amongst recovered workers at the Westlite Woodlands Dormitory.
There are five “likely” cases of Covid-19 reinfection at Westlite among 27 recovered workers testing positive for Covid-19. MOH pointed out the other 20 cases have been assessed or preliminarily assessed to be shedding virus fragments of old infections, while another two have tested negative.
Over at Tan Tock Seng Hospital, 13 cases have been identified amongst its staff and patients.
TTSH said it has taken immediate measures to lock down the affected wards. All close contacts of the identified cases, including patients, visitors and staff who have been in the affected wards, have also been placed on quarantine.
All TTSH staff and patients who were in TTSH Main Block Levels 3 to 13 from 18 to 28 April are being tested.
Dr Eugene Soh, CEO of TTSH said all 1,100 inpatients will be tested by today, and all 4,500 staff will complete their testing by this weekend.
To reduce spread from undetected cases in the community, MOH will also close all public places visited by the cases during their likely infectious period for 2 days for cleaning, and to facilitate the testing of staff at the affected places for surveillance against further spread.
Dr Soh said that to cope with the manpower reduction, the hospital will be reducing the number of elective surgeries and non-life-threatening Accident and Emergency attendances during this period.
Visitors will also not be allowed into TTSH until further notice, except for “critically ill patients” and on “compassionate grounds.”
Photo credit: MCI
