A few days ago, it was alleged that 14 passengers who had flew from Singapore to Tianjin, a city in China, were COVID-19 positive.
11 of them were apparently working in the construction industry in Singapore.
All of them were between the age of 37 and 51.
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According to reports, when they landed in Tianjin, they were all asymptomatic with 36.5°C body temperature recorded upon arrival.
However, China did a COVID-19 test on them and ta-da: they turned out to be COVID-19 positive.
Not exactly a good story to tell your friends in other countries, isn’t it?
These people have been on a Scoot flight, and the aircraft has since been “thoroughly cleaned and disinfected per operating procedures.”
It’s unknown if these people live in dormitories, but even if so, you’d have thought that this shouldn’t have happened because the flight was on 19 August 2020—dorms should’ve been cleared by then.
Well, MOH has responded.
12 out of 14 of Them Who Tested Positive Were “No Longer Infectious”
Remember back in May when MOH announced the new discharge procedure?
If not, here’s a recap: instead of waiting for anyone to be completely cleared of the virus, MOH is doing a “time-based discharge”, whereby COVID-19 patients in Singapore who are assessed to be clinically well by day 21 of the illness can be discharged.
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This time-based discharged is recommended by WHO as well, and other countries are doing that too to avoid overcrowding the hospitals as studies have shown that COVID-19 patients won’t be infectious after a certain period of time from the onset of symptoms.
WHO’s guideline is to discharge symptomatic patients from isolation 10 days after the onset of symptoms without requiring retesting, with at least three additional days without symptoms
However, they’d still tested positive for the virus due to the “viral fragments”—which is kind of like dead virus lah.
This viral fragments had then made authorities worried in March when they thought people had been re-infected.
So, here’s how this is linked to this current story: according to MOH, 12 out of the 14 have recovered, which meant they’ve gone through “time-based discharge”.
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And it’s completely normal for them to test positive for the coronavirus as the viral fragments can stay in the body for months.
They added, “However, there is no evidence to suggest that these remnant viral fragments are infectious, and studies so far have failed to culture viable virus from these patient samples, indicating that these individuals are no longer infectious and are thus safe for travel.”
So, how about the other two?
That’s still a mystery and Singapore is now in contact with the Chinese authorities to investigate the cases.
To know more about COVID-19 testing, check out this video (and also subscribe to our YouTube channel for more informative videos, please?):
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