First S’porean Infected With Wuhan Virus; Total Confirmed Cases Now at 16

By
George Yang
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Before you go apeshit and hide yourself in your house like a hermit, don’t: this Singaporean got infected in Wuhan, so there hasn’t been any community transmission.

Yet.

Here’s what went down.

First Singaporean Has Been Infected With Wuhan Virus; Was in Scoot Flight That Brought Singaporeans from Wuhan Back

If you’ve been keeping tabs on the news about Wuhan virus instead of bubble tea emoji, you’d know that a Scoot airplane went to Wuhan to “evacuate” Singaporeans that were “trapped” in the city that’s been on lockdown since 23 January 2020.

On Wednesday night, a Scoot plane set off to Wuhan with Wuhan residents who were stranded in Singapore.

Once in Wuhan, the plane carried the 92 trapped Singaporeans in Wuhan back to Singapore on Thursday (which is yesterday).

The plane is a specially arranged plane meant for one mission: bring Wuhan people from Singapore back to Wuhan and bring Singaporeans from Wuhan back to Singapore.

The coolest part about this mission?

Scoot employees actually volunteered for this flight. In fact, the volunteer list was oversubscribed despite the risks involved.

What risk, you ask.

This.

One of the Singaporeans, a 47-year-old lady, has been confirmed to be infected with the Wuhan virus.

Before anything, let’s get this out of the way: ALL the 92 Singaporeans and the officials + Scoot employees would be quarantined immediately after they landed in Singapore even if they showed no symptoms.

When 47-year-old boarded the plane, she did not exhibit any symptoms, but were found to have a fever when she landed in Changi Airport.

She was immediately taken to the National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID).

Today, at 2pm, she was tested positive for the virus.

She is currently warded in an isolation room in NCID.

Unfortunately, she wasn’t the only confirmed case that was reported today.

Two More Cases to Bring the Total to 16 Confirmed Cases in Singapore

The second confirmed case is a 31-year-old Chinese national who works in Singapore.

He landed in Singapore on 26 January 2020 from Wuhan (not sure how he managed to fly off Wuhan given that the lockdown started on 23 January 2020). As usual, he had no symptoms when he arrived in Singapore. The man developed symptoms two days later, but only went to a clinic on 30 January 2020.

The clinic immediately arranged an ambulance for him to travel to NCID, whereby he was isolated. On the same day, at 11pm, he was confirmed to have carried the virus.

The man had stayed in his home at Jurong East St 13.

The third confirmed case is a 38-year-old Chinese national from Wuhan, and had landed in Singapore on 22 January 2020. Details about his case aren’t revealed yet, but he’s tested positive today (31 January 2020) at 2pm and is now warded in Singapore General Hospital.

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

All the infected patients in Singapore, including the latest three patients, are in stable condition, and with most of their condition improving.

Status in Singapore

As of noon today, 35 cases are still pending.

For contact tracing, MOH has identified 202 close contacts, and 162 of them are still in Singapore. The ministry has managed to contact 156 of them and efforts to contact the remaining 6 contacts are still ongoing.

In the meantime, lest you didn’t know, Singapore is barring all visitors from China with effect from 1 February 2020, 11:59pm. But that doesn’t mean you should let down your guard; continue to observe good personal hygiene and remember to collect your free surgical masks from tomorrow onwards.

Also, keep yourself in the loop by bookmarking MOH’s website.

Here’s a simplified summary of the South Korea martial law that even a 5-year-old would understand:

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George Yang
Email: [email protected]