SINGAPORE - Singaporeans and permanent residents who left Singapore before an advisory against travelling out of the country was issued on March 27 and who are returning in the near future will not have to pay for their Covid-19 tests.
But this holds only if they enter Singapore by Aug 31, the Ministry of Health (MOH) said on Wednesday (June 17).
Those who left the country after March 27 in spite of the travel advisory will continue to bear the full costs of their Covid-19 tests, which costs up to $200. They would also need to pay for staying in dedicated facilities if they are serving their stay-home notices there. This applies to all Singaporeans, permanent residents and foreigners.
The ministry also clarified that it will not automatically swab those who are aged 12 or younger before they end their stay-home notices unless their close contacts test positive for the virus.
"We recognise that the tests could pose difficulties for young children," MOH said.
The ministry also confirmed 247 new coronavirus patients in Singapore on Wednesday.
Of these, there are five community cases reported on Wednesday - one Singaporean, one PR and three work pass holders.
The Singaporean patient, a 58-year-old woman, is a family member of a previously confirmed case and was swabbed while she was already quarantined.
The PR, a 23-year-old man, is asymptomatic and was tested as his work involves interacting with security guards at dormitories. He is currently unlinked to previous cases.
Two of the three work pass holders are also contacts of previously confirmed cases who had already been quarantined.
The third work pass holder was tested as part of MOH's active screening of those who work in essential services. He is the second unlinked patient among the five community cases.
Further tests of the five showed that one of the cases was likely infected some time ago and he is no longer infectious. Results for the other four are pending.
Migrant workers living in dormitories make up the remaining 242 new cases.
Wednesday's 247 new Covid-19 patients takes Singapore's total number of diagnosed coronavirus cases to 41,216.
Wednesday's figure is higher than the 151 cases reported on Tuesday, reversing two consecutive days of falling daily cases.
But it continues to be lower than last week's average of 350 cases a day from June 10 to June 16.
The average number of new daily community cases has come down in recent days as well, from nine cases two weeks ago to seven in the past week.
The figure was on the uptick from June 4, after circuit breaker measures to stem the spread of the coronavirus ended on June 1.
It stabilised on Sunday before falling on Monday, and Wednesday was the third day in a row that the number has dropped.
The average unlinked community cases per day has also fallen from four to three over the same period.
Meanwhile, the Cold Storage supermarket in Siglap V at 2 First Street, the NTUC FairPrice store at Siglap New Market at 943 East Coast Road, the Kopitiam at Our Tampines Hub, and the SF Chandpur Minimart at 6 Desker Road have been added to the list of public places visited by Covid-19 patients while they were still infectious.
The ministry provides this list of locations, where Covid-19 patients have visited for more than 30 minutes, to get those who were at these places to monitor their health closely for two weeks from the date of their visit.
It has said that close contacts would already have been notified and that there is no need to avoid these places as they would have been cleaned if needed.
The full list can be found on MOH's website.
No new Covid-19 clusters were announced on Wednesday.
With 775 new cases discharged on Wednesday, a total of 31,928 patients have fully recovered from the disease.
A total of 257 patients remain in hospital, including two in the intensive care unit, while 8,995 are recuperating in community facilities.
Singapore has had 26 deaths from Covid-19 complications, while 10 who tested positive have died of other causes.
Correction note: In an earlier version of the article, we said Singaporeans and PRs who left the country after March 27 in spite of the travel advisory do not need to pay for staying in dedicated facilities if they are serving their stay-home notices there. This is inaccurate. They would have to pay.
