1 More S’porean Confirmed With Wuhan Virus But Not Infected Locally; PM Lee Confident S’pore Will Win This Battle

Last Updated on 2020-02-03 , 5:44 pm

Remember the Scoot flight that went to Wuhan to “evacuate” 92 Singaporeans from the lockdown city?

Yeah, the plane that’s manned by heroic volunteers.

As of today, it turns out that not 1, but 2 of the 92 Singaporeans are apparently infected with the Wuhan virus.

Here’s what went down.

Second Singaporean Infected with Wuhan Virus; Lady Was in Special Scoot Flight

Today, MOH announced two more new cases.

It seems like 8pm is the time whereby we’d be greeted with this kind of news daily.

According to the ministry, one of them is yet another 47-year-old Singaporean lady who was evacuated from Wuhan to Singapore on Thursday. Just like the first infected Singapore, she had no symptoms when she boarded the plane, but had a fever once she was in Changi Airport.

She was sent to the National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID) immediately and was tested positive yesterday (31 January 2020) at around 11pm.

The other confirmed case is a 31-year-old Chinese national who landed on Singapore from Wuhan on 22 January 2020. She was only tested positive today (1 February) at 2pm.

As usual, MOH has initiated epidemiological investigations and contact tracing to identify individuals who had close contact with the cases.

All the confirmed cases, which now stands at 18, are in stable condition.

Status of Singapore

As of noon today, there are still 25 pending cases.

For contact tracing, MOH has identified 245 close contacts, and 177 of them are still in Singapore. 172 of them have been contacted and MOH is still trying to contact the remaining 5 contacts.

PM Lee Speaks About Wuhan Virus; Confident Singapore Can Overcome Challenge

As the news of the latest two victims was released, PM Lee was in Teck Ghee for a Chinese New Year Celebration event and spoke about the Wuhan virus.

He reminded us that we’ve once overcome the SARS outbreak, adding, “We did not know how long it would last, and we worried about our loved ones being infected. But we stayed united and dealt with the crisis together.”

Unlike years ago whereby Tan Tock Seng Hospital became a ground zero for the battle against SARS, we’re now more prepared: after all, NCID did not exist then. Also, healthcare professionals are now trained to fight an outbreak like this.

“So I have every confidence that we can overcome the challenge before us,” PM Lee added.

However, unlike 2003 whereby Facebook was called FaceMash, there were no social media except a certain website that allows us to write testimonials on walls. Now the world’s very different and fake news or rumours can spread as fast as an auntie running for the reserved seats, so it’s important to ensure that we don’t anyhowly share rumours.

PM Lee said, “So I strongly advise everybody, if you hear something shocking … check with proper channels, check from trusted places.”

You might want to bookmark the MOH’s website here.

In the meantime, if you’ve not done so, please do remember to collect your free surgical masks.