SINGAPORE - A total of 234 staff working at Crowne Plaza Changi Airport have tested negative for Covid-19, said the Ministry of Health (MOH) on Saturday (Jan 9).
The ministry announced on Thursday a special testing operation of all hotel staff after two unlinked cases were found among staff there. A third case also emerged on Friday.
It closed the hotel from Friday until Jan 21 as a precautionary measure.
The three cases were a 20-year-old Singapore man, a 24-year-old Korean national and a 43-year-old Malaysian woman.
The Singaporean had tested positive for the more infectious UK strain of Covid-19 and was pending further confirmatory tests on Friday.
All three hotel workers had delivered pre-packed meals to air crew and hotel guests.
The ministry said it is investigating the three infections: "From our preliminary investigations, we cannot exclude that transmissions could have occurred at the hotel."
MOH reported 29 new Covid-19 cases on Saturday, all of which are imported. The new cases take Singapore's total to 58,865.
The imported cases include four Singaporeans, one of whom is a 71-year-old man who returned from India and was asymptomatic.
The other Singaporeans arrived from Sweden and the United Kingdom.
There were also three dependant's pass holders who arrived from the United Arab Emirates, India and the Maldives.
Also among the imported cases was a special pass holder who is a sea crew member. He arrived from Indonesia on board a vessel and was swabbed upon arrival. He was taken to the hospital after his test result came back positive for Covid-19 infection.
Meanwhile, Indian restaurant Sri Aachi Aappakadai in Little India was added to the list of places visited by Covid-19 patients while they were still infectious, said the Health Ministry.
Overall, the number of new cases in the community has decreased from 10 cases in the week before to eight cases in the past week.
The number of unlinked cases in the community has increased from four cases in the week before to five cases in the past week.
With 31 cases discharged on Saturday, 58,596 patients have fully recovered from the disease.
A total of 67 patients remain in hospital, including one in the intensive care unit, while 158 are recuperating in community facilities. Singapore has had 29 deaths from Covid-19 complications, while 15 who tested positive have died of other causes.
