6 COVID-19 Cases Today (9 Dec); All Are Imported As Cruise Ship Passenger’s Test Sample Will be Re-tested

Many of us woke up to the shocking news of a COVID-19 case in a cruise ship that was cruising to nowhere, so while today’s results look promising, it goes to show that the future is more uncertain than we expected.

Today (9 December 2020), as of 12pm, the Ministry of Health (MOH) has preliminarily confirmed 6 new cases of COVID-19 infection.

All of them are imported and have been on SHN on arrival to Singapore.

Now, how about the case in the cruise ship?

MOH said that the man’s PCR test sample will be re-tested at the National Public Health Laboratory and a second sample will be taken for confirmatory tests, so it should reflect in tomorrow’s results instead.

This brings the total number of cases in Singapore to 58,291.

Based on yesterday’s figures, the number of new cases in the community has remained low, with a total of 1 case in the past week, who is linked to a previous case.

Cruise Passenger Tested Positive for COVID-19

This morning, Royal Caribbean’s Quantum of the Seas ship, during a cruise to nowhere, cut short its journey and returned to Singapore after it was confirmed that someone on board has tested positive for COVID-19.

The confirmed Covid-19 case is an 83-year-old man who reported to the medical centre on the ship with diarrhoea. He then underwent a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test as part of the on-board protocols.

The man previously underwent a mandatory PCR test prior to boarding, but tested negative.

He was immediately isolated after testing positive.

The good news is that all the man’s close contacts have tested negative for Covid-19.

They were immediately identified and isolated after the man tested positive, and subsequently underwent a PCR test, which returned negative results for all.

Crew members who were in close contact with the confirmed Covid-19 case were also isolated and subsequently tested negative for the coronavirus.

The Ministry of Health (MOH) issued a health advisory to the cruise’s passengers, informing them that all the Covid-19 case’s contacts will be placed on quarantine or health surveillance.

Other passengers on the ship will be required to monitor their health for two weeks from the date of disembarkation and undergo a swab test at the end of the monitoring period.

Royal Caribbean will provide passengers with details of their swab appointments from a week after disembarkation.

Their tests will be paid for by MOH.

Only those who aren’t close contacts of the confirmed Covid-19 case will be allowed to disembark.

They will be tested and then sent home and asked to monitor their health for 14 days.

The other guests will only disembark after a review of contact tracing is completed, meaning they have to stay on the cruise in the meantime.

Image: Rajaraman Arumugam / Shutterstock.com (Image is for illustration purpose only)