Coronavirus: Four out of five latest patients from new Safra Jurong cluster

This article is more than 12 months old

Mar 06, 2020 06:00 am

Four of the five confirmed cases yesterday were infected in a newly identified cluster involving a private dinner function at Safra Jurong on Feb 15.

The other new patient, an imported case, is a 42-year-old French man (Case 113) holding a Singapore work pass who arrived on a Turkish Airlines flight from Istanbul on Tuesday. (See report.)

Four previous cases, including a Raffles Institution student (Case 96) and a pre-school assistant cook (Case 112), have also been linked to the Safra cluster, making a total of eight so far.

The four new patients are a 62-year-old man (Case 114) and three women, aged 62, 50 and 52 (Cases 115, 116 and 117, respectively), said the Ministry of Health. They are Singaporeans with no recent travel history to affected regions.

The man developed symptoms on Feb 28, went to a clinic the next day and was warded at the National University Hospital (NUH) on March 3. He was confirmed to be infected the next day.

Case 115, who is related to the man, tested positive yesterday and is also warded at NUH.

The WHO is currently in the process of conducting an analysis of excess deaths during the pandemic.

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Cases 116 and 117, who was in Malaysia on Sunday, are warded at the National Centre for Infectious Diseases.

The other two people linked to the cluster are Case 94, a 64-year-old Singaporean woman who is related to the RI boy, and Case 107, a 68-year-old Singaporean woman.

Safra said last night that all attendees at the Feb 15 function at Joy Garden Restaurant at Safra Jurong had their temperatures checked, which was imposed after Singapore's disease outbreak response level was raised to orange last month.

Everyone had cleared temperature checks, Safra said.

"They did not have fever, nor exhibited any flu-like symptoms," it said in its statement.

"They also did not have any recent travel history to mainland China within the past 14 days of their visit to the club as stated within their declaration."

Safra said Joy Garden was closed for cleaning from Feb 16 to 19 after the function "as a hygiene practice". The restaurant and other areas will be cleaned and disinfected again as a precautionary measure.

Two more patients were discharged yesterday, making a total of 81 recoveries. As of noon yesterday, 381 people are in quarantine. Of the 36 confirmed cases still in hospital, seven are in the intensive care unit.