Visitors Of White Sands Mall Between 2-11 May Encouraged To Take Swab Test
As Singapore continues to see an increase in community Covid-19 cases, more public places are appearing in the Ministry of Health’s (MOH) list of locations visited by patients while infectious. Among recent ones is White Sands Shopping Mall in Pasir Ris.
Unfortunately, since it appeared more than 10 times in just 9 days, MOH is encouraging recent visitors to take a Covid-19 swab test.
In particular, for visitors who were at the mall between 2-11 May.
4th community case linked to White Sands cluster
On Monday (17 May), MOH shared that a 4th community case has been linked to the White Sands cluster, involving 3 other family members.
Case 63365, a 65-year-old retiree, is a household contact of Case 63166, a 22-year-old cook at WOK HEY’s White Sands outlet who first tested positive on 13 May.
2 other household contacts, Cases 63241 and 63280, subsequently tested positive too.
All of them had already been placed under quarantine since 13 May.
Mall listed 14 times on MOH list
Apart from WOK HEY itself, several other stores at White Sands appeared multiple times on MOH’s public places list, adding up to 14 as of Monday (17 May).
The stores and dates are as follows:
- FairPrice – 2 May (4.05pm-4.45pm)
- Unity Pharmacy – 2 May (8.30am-10.20pm), 3 May (8.30am-10.20pm), 4 May (8.30am-10.20pm), 5 May (8.30am-10.20pm), 7 May (8.30am-10.20pm), 10 May (8.30am – 10.20pm)
- WOK HEY – 8 May (8.30am-9pm), 9 May (10.25am-10.30pm), 10 May (10.25am-10.30pm)
- Cookhouse by Koufu – 9 May (9.15am-10.30pm)
- Koufu – 9 May (10.15am-10.45am)
- General mall area – 10 May (2.15pm-3.30pm)
- Ya Kun Family Cafe – 11 May (3.20pm-4pm)
Due to the multiple risks of exposure, MOH is thus offering free swab tests to visitors who had been at the mall between 2-11 May.
Free swab test till 31 May for affected visitors
Besides conducting special testing operations for mall staff, MOH is extending free Covid-19 tests to affected visitors.
These visitors will be receiving an SMS notification informing them of how to book their appointments.
Once they’ve done so, they can proceed to any one of the following former school sites turned regional screening centres, according to Channel NewsAsia (CNA):
- Coral Primary School – 20 Pasir Ris Street 51
- Bishan Park Secondary School – 2 Sin Ming Walk
- Da Qiao Primary School – 8 Ang Mo Kio Street 54
- Shuqun Secondary School – 450 Jurong East Street 21
Alternatively, they may visit a “Swab and Send Home” (SASH) Public Health Preparedness Clinic should they feel unwell.
In the meantime, they’ll have to monitor their health for 14 days following their last visit.
Hope cluster doesn’t grow
Since the cluster so far seems limited to 1 household, we hope that transmissions won’t go beyond that.
However, we’ll only find out after the necessary swab tests have been done and no new cases surface after the 14-day observation period.
For now, we wish all patients and recent visitors to the mall well and hope the situation stabilises.
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Featured image adapted from Google Maps.
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