Tuition centre teacher one of two cases in community

A 27-year-old teacher at the Yishun branch of Berries World of Learning School, a Chinese-language enrichment centre, has tested positive for Covid-19.

The Singapore permanent resident developed a runny nose on Tuesday after work and went to a general practitioner the next day, where she was tested for the coronavirus, said the Ministry of Health (MOH).

Her test came back positive yesterday, and she was taken to Singapore General Hospital.

As a precautionary measure, the centre where she works will be closed until Sunday for cleaning and disinfection.

She is one of two community cases confirmed by MOH yesterday, the other being a 33-year-old Malaysian man who works at PSA Corp in the West Coast port area.

He was asymptomatic and was tested on Sunday as part of rostered routine testing. He was confirmed to have the infection on Wednesday.

He had received both doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine, with his second dose taken on Feb 14.

"As it typically takes a few weeks for an individual to build up immunity after completing vaccination, he was likely to have been infected before he was conferred protection after vaccination," said MOH.

There were also eight imported cases confirmed yesterday, bringing Singapore's total case count to 59,900.

The eight imported cases comprised individuals arriving from India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and the Philippines.

Also, national water agency PUB began vaccinating its staff against Covid-19 yesterday, prioritising engineers and technicians whose work requires them to frequent its water plants.

PUB said more than 4,000 staff and contractors are to be vaccinated over the coming months.