Four Covid-19 cases among non-patients raise concerns

In just over a week, four confirmed cases of Covid-19 emerged among healthcare workers and volunteers at the Singapore Expo community care facility (CCF).

Three are healthcare workers and one is a volunteer.

Among them are two nurses, aged 34 and 20, and respectively confirmed on May 2 and last Tuesday. Another, confirmed last Monday, is a 52-year-old healthcare volunteer.

The most recent case at the Expo CCF, a 43-year-old male Singaporean who had gone to work as a radiographer at the Singapore Expo, was found last Thursday to have contracted the coronavirus.

The three earlier cases were from the Woodlands Health Campus medical team, and a spokesman for the Woodlands Health Campus said the Ministry of Health (MOH) classified them as unlinked cases, The Straits Times reported last Friday. Further epidemiological investigations and contact tracing are ongoing.

The number of new cases developing among non-patients at CCFs has raised concerns, and efforts to step up safety at community care and recovery facilities are in place.

At a multi-ministry task force press conference last Friday, MOH's director of medical services Kenneth Mak said process improvements will be put in place.

He said: "We are very concerned... about making sure that our workers are protected, and we will be reviewing all the measures that they take at these sites to ensure that they are also up to speed and competent with their personal protective equipment use, as well as infection control measures."

He also stressed that staff were being tested on a regular basis to make sure that they are not exposed to infection.