Jem and Westgate cluster grows to 50; Pizza Hut staff among 24 community cases

Free Covid-19 testing will be extended to those who have visited Jem and Westgate from May 10 to May 22, after a cluster linked to the malls grew to 50 cases.

Six new cases linked to the shopping malls cluster were among the 24 community cases confirmed by the Ministry of Health (MOH) yesterday.

Meanwhile, a 15-year-old Peicai Secondary student and a 16-year-old Greendale Secondary student - both part-time workers at Pizza Hut at Punggol Plaza - are among five cases added to the McDonald's delivery riders cluster first linked last Saturday.

A 53-year-old cleaner who works at Park Avenue Rochester, a stay-home notice dedicated facility, may have been the source of infection for the Westgate and Jem cluster when she visited Westgate on May 6, investigations by MOH suggest.

The cleaner was previously confirmed to have the virus on May 7.

"Whole genome sequencing and phylogenetic analysis conducted by the National Public Health Laboratory have revealed that some of the visitors to Jem and Westgate have similar sequences to (that of the cleaner)," MOH said yesterday. "Further investigations into the mode of transmission are ongoing."

All visitors to Jem and Westgate since May 10 are advised to monitor their health closely for 14 days from their date of visit. They are encouraged to visit a regional screening centre or Swab and Send Home (Sash) Public Health Preparedness Clinics for a free Covid-19 test if they feel unwell.

With the six new community cases linked to the Westgate and Jem cluster, it is now the second biggest active cluster after Changi Airport.

The new cases comprise two Singapore Polytechnic (SP) students, an administrative staff member at ST Electronics (Jurong East), a delivery personnel at AST Logistics, an unemployed woman and a waiter at Pizza Hut at Westgate.

With the addition of five more cases to the McDonald's delivery riders cluster, it now has a total of 10 patients linked to it.

Four of the new cases are staff of Pizza Hut (Punggol Plaza) while another works as a delivery rider for Pizza Hut (Havelock II).

Of the four, one is a 31-year-old delivery rider who is a close contact of delivery riders at McDonald's (Bedok Reservoir) and McDonald's (Pasir Ris Elias Community Club) confirmed to have the virus last week.

New cases: 36

In community: 24

Imported: 12 (3 Singaporeans, 2 permanent residents, 1 dependant's pass holder, 2 work permit holders, 3 short-term visit pass holders, 1 special pass holder)

In dormitories: 0

New community cases in the past week: 185 (32 unlinked cases)

Active cases: 512

In hospitals: 244 (3 in ICU)

In community facilities: 268

Deaths: 32

Patients with Covid-19 who died from other causes: 15

Total discharged: 61,301

Discharged yesterday: 22

TOTAL CASES: 61,860

Two of them are part-timers - the 15-year-old student at Peicai Secondary School, and the 16-year-old student at Greendale Secondary School.

The fourth is an 18-year-old boy who is a part-timer at Pizza Hut (Punggol Plaza) and also works as a part-time delivery personnel with Grab and Deliveroo.

The Peicai Secondary School student had developed a cough last Thursday but did not seek medical treatment. He had last gone to school on May 4.

He was tested on Sunday and his test came back positive on the same day.

The Greendale Secondary School student was asymptomatic and detected when he went to a general practitioner's clinic for a Covid-19 test on Sunday after he was encouraged to do so by his employer. He had last gone to school on May 17.

Meanwhile, a 51-year-old prison inmate at Changi Prison Complex was added to the cluster there.

He was a close contact of the first case detected in the cluster, a 39-year-old chef at the prison, and had been quarantined on May 13.

Another dealer at Marina Bay Sands casino has been added to the cluster linked to his colleagues.

A 38-year-old teacher at Maha Bodhi School and an eight-year-old pupil at Yu Neng Primary School were also added to the Learning Point cluster.

Both were contacts of previous cases. The pupil was a classmate of an eight-year-old boy who had attended the classes of the first case in the cluster, a 50-year-old Learning Point tutor.

With the new links, there are now 29 open clusters in Singapore.

A two-year-old pre-schooler at Heartfield Kindergarten was also added to a cluster linked to a 53-year-old personal chauffeur.

The two unlinked cases in the community announced yesterday were a 31-year-old engineer at Hiap Seng Engineering and a 31-year-old property agent with ERA Realty Network.

Separately, MOH said yesterday that testing operations for Block 559 Pasir Ris Street 51 have been completed, with 188 people in the affected block testing negative for the virus. The results for the remaining 97 are pending.

Swabbing took place after four Covid-19 cases were detected in two different households there.

About 8,500 students, staff and vendors at SP have also tested negative for the virus. "In view of this, there are currently no plans to extend testing to the rest of the SP community," said a spokesman.

There were also 12 imported cases who had been placed on stay-home notice on arrival in Singapore. Of these, three are Singaporeans and two are permanent residents.

The new cases take Singapore's total tally to 61,860.

The number of new cases in the community has risen from 149 cases two weeks ago to 185 in the past week. The number of unlinked cases in the community in a week has remained stable at 32 cases per week.

With 22 patients discharged yesterday, 61,301 patients have fully recovered from the disease.

A total of 244 patients remain in hospital, including three in critical condition in the intensive care unit, while 268 are recuperating in community facilities.