CGH Cluster Involves 14 Staff Who Don’t Interact With Patients, Almost All Are Vaccinated

Large Majority Of CGH Cluster’s 14 Staff From Outsourced Service Partners

UPDATE (4 Sep, 11.20pm): In its nightly Covid-19 update on Saturday (4 Sep), MOH said the Changi General Hospital (CGH) cluster had grown to 36 cases after 21 new cases were detected.

That makes the latest CGH cluster the biggest one the hospital has encountered, given that its 1st cluster stopped at 20 cases and its 2nd cluster is at 4 so far.

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On Friday (3 Sep), as Singaporeans digested the daily Covid-19 update, we would have found that another cluster had emerged at Changi General Hospital (CGH).

Clusters in hospitals are more concerning as patients who’re sick, and thus vulnerable, are likely to be infected.

However, CGH has said that the 14 cases linked so far are all staff members who don’t interact with patients.

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Almost all of them are also fully vaccinated, so none are critically ill, the hospital added.

Large majority of cases are outsourced workers

In a Facebook post and media release on Saturday (4 Sep), CGH attempted to reassure the public by revealing some details of the latest cases.

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This CGH cluster has 14 so far, and the “large majority” of then are staff from outsourced service partners.

They didn’t elaborate on where these staff were outsourced from. Neither did they give details on how many of them were not outsourced workers.

The hospital only said that they were confirmed to be infected on Friday (3 Sep).

Infected staff work in basement

CGH has also said that the infected staff all work in the hospital’s basement level.

Besides being literally underground, they also don’t have direct interaction with patients as part of their work.

They also adhered to safe management measures.

None of them are critically ill, largely due to “almost all” of them being fully vaccinated.

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However, since they work in the basement, staff working there are being swabbed for Covid-19.

Action taken to ringfence infections

CGH is also attempting to ringfence the infections by taking added precautions.

For example, all CGH staff and outsourced service partners will undergo a 1-time self-administered Antigen Rapid Test (ART).

Close contacts of the infected staff have also been placed on quarantine.

As expected, relevant areas in the premises have gone through thorough cleaning and disinfection.

Hospital operations normal

CGH also maintained that its operations are going on as per normal.

There’s been no change to visitation guidelines, and outpatient appointments may also proceed.

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That’s because the hospital’s clinical areas aren’t affected and the hospital remains safe the public to visit, they added.

1st CGH cluster started in Jun

Unfortunately, the past few months haven’t been kind to CGH, as 3 separate clusters have formed there since Jun.

The 1st one was reported there on 25 Jun, when 3 infected porters at the hospital were linked to one another.

That formed Singapore’s 2nd hospital cluster after the massive one at Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH).

Thankfully, that 1st CGH cluster stopped at 20 cases, and was closed on 31 Jul.

Just 3 days after that cluster closed, another cluster was reported on 3 Aug.

That 2nd cluster has 4 cases linked to it, and is still active.

Even though the 2nd cluster hasn’t closed yet, a 3rd cluster has now emerged.

CGH has said the 14 cases in the latest cluster “are not linked” to the earlier cluster.

Wishing the infected a speedy recovery

It’s certainly concerning that 3 separate Covid-19 clusters have cropped up at the same hospital in more than 3 months.

While none of the 3 clusters have so far reached the size of the one at TTSH, the fact that they keep showing up would cause families of long-term patients to have sleepless nights.

After all, you wouldn’t want to be infected with a virus in the very place that’s supposed to help you get well.

Hopefully, the latest cluster won’t spread too much. MS News wishes the infected a speedy recovery.

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Featured image adapted from Google Maps.