Family Who Might Have Started the Changi Airport COVID-19 Cluster Did Not Come From India

Xenophobia against India has spiked in recent days, a pathological expression of fear that the B1617 variant of the coronavirus—one first discovered in the country—may be behind Singapore’s largest COVID-19 cluster and making its way around the island.

Xenophobia doesn’t usually make a lot of sense, and even less here: apparently, the family likely to have started the cluster did not even arrive from India.

Only Repatriation Flights Are Carrying Passengers Between S’pore and India

India prohibited all international passenger services to and from Singapore more than a year ago in March 2020, according to a joint statement by the ministries of transport, foreign affairs, and manpower, reported by The Straits Times.

The only passenger flights operating between the two countries are repatriation flights designated by the Indian government.

These flights, named Vande Bharat, are operated out of Terminal 1 by Indian carriers with the approval of the Singapore Government to help Indian nationals return home.

Since there are no other passenger flights available, Singaporeans hoping to return from India take the outbound flights with the approval of the Indian government, and about 25 arrive each day.

Since India is considered a high-risk country, all arrivals from India will have to take two COVID-19 tests at arrival and be escorted to dedicated facilities for a 21-day stay-home notice (SHN).

Family Arriving on 29 April Likely Started COVID-19 Transmission

The Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) and Changi Airport Group (CAG) released a statement on Friday (21 May), announcing that the first transmission in the Changi Airport cluster was likely an airport worker who assisted a family from South Asia.

The authorities did not state the country of origin for the family, who arrived on 29 April. However, since all non-Singapore-citizen and non-permanent-resident arrivals from India are banned since 23 April, those looking for some group to discriminate will have to discriminate against Singaporeans if they did come from India. Oh no.

It is not yet clear how the virus then spread to other airport staff and members of the public, though many believe the enclosed, air-conditioned environment of the airport contributed to the transmission.

The airport has since segregated facilities used by incoming passengers from countries with different COVID-19 risk levels in an attempt to curb transmission, though experts believe that these measures need to be enhanced further given the transmissibility of the virus.

While several cases of infection occurred in vaccinated airport workers, the importance of vaccination should not be underestimated, according to The Straits Times.

As Professor Teo Yik Ying of the National University of Singapore (NUS) commented, “The outbreak among airport front-line workers would be bigger, if not for the fact that many of these workers have already been vaccinated.”

Feature Image: EQRoy / Shutterstock.com