Man Who Works in Camera Shop Tested Positive for COVID-19 & is 1 of the 5 Unlinked Community Cases

Back in February 2020, the first COVID-19 cluster in Singapore was reported, and it’s a shop in Lavender that sells primarily health products. The cluster eventually has 9 linked infections in total, and it took the honour of being the first local transmission.

Yesterday (22 August 2020), it’s reported that one of the COVID-19 community cases has gone to work at SLR Revolution, a camera shop at Excelsior Shopping Centre.

The shop is a rather popular camera shop, and in fact, one of us in the video team had gone there often. And of course part of the reason is that there isn’t a lot of camera shops in Singapore lah.

If memories of the Yong Thai Hang cluster has just come back to haunt you, don’t be.

Here are the differences between now and then:

• Yong Thai Hang often has their doors closed, which led to bad air circulation
• During the Yong Thai Hang period, people don’t need to wear mask and social distance
• No safe-entry was also available during the Yong Thai Hang period
• Most importantly, if the camera shop has followed all the guidelines, hand sanitisers should be everywhere to kill those nasty coronavirus

In other words, the new measures could’ve mitigated any potential risks as it’s been proven in schools, whereby infected students didn’t transmit to other students.

The man, a 61-year-old Singaporean, had his symptoms on 17 August 2020, and had gone to the doctor. He was diagnosed with acute respiratory infection (ARI) and a swab test confirmed his status on 20 August 2020. He is therefore an unlinked case.

Lest you’ve forgotten, after a day of zero community case on Thursday, we’ve a whopping 6 community cases yesterday.

1 of the case is already under quarantine as he’s linked to a previously confirmed case, while the other 4 cases are detected through MOH’s proactive screening and surveillance, with 3 of them working in the construction, marine and process sectors who are living outside the dormitories and 1 of them working in frontline COVID-19 operations.

Four shopping malls, Tampines Mall, West Mall, Century Square, and Gek Poh Shopping Centre, were also added to a list of public places visited by COVID-19 cases in the community during their infectious period.

Here’s the complete list:

As usual, you just need to monitor your health if you’ve been to these places during those timings, and there is no need to avoid places where confirmed cases of COVID-19 have been. The National Environment Agency will engage the management of affected premises to provide guidance on cleaning and disinfection.

Lest you’re not aware, there would be some major changes in the restrictions of our borders come 1 September 2020. You can read more about them here.