SINGAPORE - Several supermarket outlets and food centres were added to a list of places visited by Covid-19 patients before they were tested.
In its daily update on Saturday (May 30), the Ministry of Health (MOH) included two Don Don Donki outlets and two NTUC FairPrice outlets.
A patient visited the Don Don Donki outlet at 100 AM at Tras Street on May 17 from 12.40pm to 2pm and another visited the one at Jem in Jurong East on May 24 between 9.30pm and 10.20pm.
Patients had also visited the FairPrice outlets in Junction 8, on May 26 from 10.05am to 10.35am, and in 414 Yishun Ring Road, on May 28 between 1pm and 1.30pm.
The Giant outlet in 418 Yishun Avenue 11 was visited by an infected person on May 28 from 1.30pm to 2pm.
Patients also went to the Mayflower Market and Food Centre in 162 Ang Mo Kio Avenue 4 on May 19, from 10.45am to 11.15am, and the Food Junction outlet in Junction 8 on May 27 between 11.30am and 12pm.
The list now comprises 15 places that Covid-19 patients had visited in the past two weeks. It excludes their places of residence, workplaces, healthcare facilities and public transport.
The full list, along with the dates and times when the locations were visited by the patients, can be found on the MOH website.
The MOH said those who had been identified as close contacts of confirmed cases would have already been notified.
But members of the public who had been to the locations on the list at the same time as the confirmed cases should monitor their health for 14 days from the date of visit as a precautionary measure.
Meanwhile, the MOH said the three prison inmates and a staff nurse in the Singapore Prison Service's medical service who previously tested positive for Covid-19 did not constitute a cluster.
The ministry said in its daily update that it had established that the four patients and were not epidemiologically linked to one another.
"The cases had been included earlier in our daily updates on new Covid-19 cases," the ministry said.
The inmates were reported as Case 8,650, Case 11,178 and Case 23,195, while the nurse was Case 11,927.
The MOH also reported that 1,096 more patients were discharged on Saturday, bringing the total number of recovered patients to 20,727. This includes nine patients who tested positive for Covid-19, but who died of other causes, which the MOH counts as having recovered.
One new cluster involving nine earlier cases was found at a dormitory in 15A Senoko Way.
Of the 506 new cases on Saturday, there were five cases in the general community, including one Singaporean, one permanent resident and three work pass holders.
The other 501 cases are work permit holders residing in foreign worker dormitories.
The PR is a 45 year-old-woman who is a non-teaching preschool staff member at My First Skool @ 192 Lorong 4 Toa Payoh. The MOH said she was detected as a result of proactive screening of preschool staff.
"MOH will conduct a serological test to determine if this was a past or current infection."
The ministry added that the Singaporean is currently an unlinked case.
Of the three community cases involving work pass holders, one was a contact of previous confirmed cases and had already been placed on quarantine earlier, the ministry said.
Another was tested before he was due to start work on a plumbing project at a preschool.
Epidemiological investigations are ongoing for the remaining case.
The MOH said the number of new cases in the community has decreased from an average of seven cases a day in the week before to an average of four a day in the past week.
"The number of unlinked cases in the community has remained stable at an average of two per day in the past two weeks," the MOH said.
"We will continue to closely monitor these numbers, as well as the cases detected through our surveillance programme."
Correction: This article has been updated for accuracy.
