On Friday (25 Jun), Singapore’s 2nd hospital cluster was declared at Changi General Hospital (CGH).
It emerged when 3 porters in total were confirmed to be infected with Covid-19.
Unfortunately, the CGH cluster has now grown to 10 people, 1 of whom is a healthcare assistant.
On Sunday (27 Jun), the Ministry of Health (MOH) reported 12 community cases in its media release.
It turns out that 5 of them are linked to the CGH cluster.
2 of these cases are porters – hired to move patients between wards and departments. They also move goods, equipment and sometimes biological samples.
One of them is Case 64489, a 62-year-old Singaporean man who’s a porter at CGH. He was placed on quarantine on 25 Jun.
He developed a cough and runny nose on that day but didn’t report them. He was also tested that day and confirmed positive on 26 Jun. He’s fully vaccinated.
The other porter also linked to the CGH cluster actually works at the National University Hospital (NUH).
Case 64490, a 24-year-old Singaporean woman, is linked to the CGH cluster as she’s a family member and household contact of a previous case who’s a CGH porter.
She was placed on quarantine on 25 Jun, tested that day and confirmed positive on 26 Jun. She also developed a fever that day, and a sore throat and runny nose on 27 Jun. She’s fully vaccinated.
Besides the porters, a healthcare assistant has also been added to the cluster.
The 69-year-old Singaporean woman developed body aches on 24 Jun, but she wasn’t tested for Covid-19 when she visited a polyclinic that day.
On 25 Jun, she started having a fever and sore throat, and went to a doctor where she was referred for a Covid-19 test.
She finally got tested at CGH on 26 Jun, and it came back positive that day.
She’s been deemed as Case 64484, and has got her 1st dose of the vaccine.
The 2 other cases linked to the cluster on Sunday (27 Jun) are family members and household contacts of previous cases.
They are:
It all started when a 35-year-old Singaporean man, a porter, was reported in MOH’s release on Thursday (24 Jun).
He was classified as an unlinked case, and was detected via routine testing as he was asymptomatic.
His test came back positive on Wednesday (23 Jun), and he was deemed as Case 64413.
Preliminary tests also found that he’d been infected by the Delta variant, and is in the early stages of infection.
Subsequently, 2 other porters were found to be infected:
On Saturday (26 Jun), 2 more porters were linked:
Thus, out of the 10 cases so far:
In an update on Saturday (26 Jun), MOH also listed a CGH nurse as being infected.
Source
Confusingly, she wasn’t linked to the CGH cluster — she was classified as an unlinked case instead.
She’s a 21-year-old Singaporean woman who was routinely tested on 23 Jun.
She developed a fever and runny nose on 24 Jun, and was confirmed positive on 25 Jun.
Deemed as Case 64464, she’s also fully vaccinated.
In a Facebook post on Sunday (27 Jun) night, CGH said all the infected staff had followed precautionary measures strictly.
This included wearing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) at work.
They’re all generally well, with mild symptoms.
Earlier on Sunday (27 Jun), the hospital said that as a precautionary measure, patients identified as Covid-19 contacts won’t be allowed to receive visitors in the wards.
These patients may also be placed in isolation to continue their recuperation.
The growth of the CGH cluster is worrying, especially since we know from the Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH) cluster that it could lead to fatalities.
So far, no patients have been infected, which is good news indeed.
Hopefully the infections can be swiftly ringfenced to prevent them from spreading.
In the meantime, MS News wishes all those infected a smooth recovery.
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Featured image by Google Maps.
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