Coronavirus: Four students and school teacher among new cases in the community

(Clockwise from top left) Bedok View Secondary School, East Spring Primary School, Jurong West Primary School and Jurong West Secondary School. PHOTOS: SCREENGRAB FROM GOOGLE MAPS

SINGAPORE - Four students and a school teacher are among the 20 community cases announced on Tuesday (July 7).

The students are from Bedok View Secondary School, East Spring Primary School, Jurong West Primary School and Jurong West Secondary School, while the teacher is from Assumption Pathway School, the Ministry of Education (MOE) said in a statement.

The four students are linked to household infections and were on home quarantine orders before they were later swabbed as close contacts of their household members.

These students were well when they were last in school the previous week and investigations are currently under way for the teacher.

Beyond existing safe management measures, MOE said the affected schools have implemented additional precautions, including a thorough cleaning and disinfection of school premises.

About 60 students and 10 staff each in Assumption Pathway School, East Spring Primary School, Jurong West Primary School and Jurong West Secondary School who were in contact with the confirmed cases have been issued a 14-day leave of absence by MOE or home quarantine order by MOH.

For Bedok View Secondary School, MOE said that since the student was last in school on June 30, MOH has assessed the risk of infection for students and staff to be low and no leave of absence or home quarantine order has been issued.

MOE reminded all parents, staff and students that if a student or any adult household member is unwell, the student should not go to school.

"We would also like to assure all parents and students that while we can expect to see such confirmed cases from time to time through a more extensive Covid-19 testing regime, we will continue to quickly isolate those who are at risk of infection through leave of absence and home quarantine orders. This will prevent transmissions and enable the rest of the school system to continue to function normally," said MOE.

Among the 20 new community cases on Tuesday are three Singaporean children - a two-year-old boy, a nine-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy.

Two of them are contacts of a previously announced patient, a 29-year-old Indonesian woman who tested positive on July 2, and were confirmed to have Covid-19 infection on Monday.

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The 11-year-old boy is a contact of another previously announced patient.

Twelve of the community cases are linked to previous cases or clusters. Of these, 11 were identified as contacts of previously confirmed cases, and had been tested during their quarantine. The remaining case was swabbed as part of proactive screening of workers in essential services, even though he is asymptomatic.

Eight of the community cases are currently unlinked. Of these, five cases were tested as they work in essential services. They are all asymptomatic.

The ActiveSG gym in Jurong Lake Gardens, Ban Kah Hiang Trading in Bukit Merah, Tampines Mall's StarHub outlet, Cheng Hoo Tian restaurant, Great World City, Jurong Point , FairPrice Hub in Joo Koon Circle and Jem are among the places visited by Covid-19 patients while they were still infectious.

Those who were there at same time as the patients should monitor their health closely for two weeks from the date of their visit.

The ministry provides the list of locations that Covid-19 patients have visited for at least 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.

Three imported Covid-19 cases on Tuesday comprise two Indian nationals, who are dependant's pass holders. They returned to Singapore from India on June 23. The other case is a Filipino work pass holder, who returned to Singapore from the Philippines on June 19.

All of them were issued 14-day stay-home notices when they arrived in Singapore and were tested while serving their notices.

Migrant workers living in dormitories make up the remaining 134 cases, taking Singapore's total to 45,140.

The average number of new cases in the community per day has increased to 14 in the past week, from eight in the week before that.

The average number of unlinked cases in the community per day has also increased - to six in the past week, from four in the week before that.

With 285 cases discharged on Tuesday, 40,990 patients have fully recovered from the disease.

A total of 219 patients remain in hospital, including one in the intensive care unit, while 3,893 are recuperating in community facilities.

Singapore has had 26 deaths from Covid-19 complications, while 12 who tested positive have died of other causes.

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