Two of Singapore's earliest detected coronavirus clusters have officially been closed and are no longer considered active, the Ministry of Health (MOH) said.
MOH director of medical services Kenneth Mak said on Tuesday that both the Yong Thai Hang health products shop and Grand Hyatt Singapore clusters have not been linked to new Covid-19 cases in more than 28 days. Both locations had gone through two periods of incubation, each lasting 14 days.
A check by The Straits Times found that all 12 cases linked to the two clusters have recovered and been discharged from hospital.
Yong Thai Hang, a medical shop in Cavan Road, was the first local cluster to be discovered in Singapore, with nine cases in total. The first case linked to the store was Case 19 - a 28-year-old female sales staff member at the store who was confirmed to have the virus on Feb 3.
The Grand Hyatt cluster had three cases in total, including a 27-year-old Singaporean man who was confirmed to have the virus on Feb 6. The other two cases were a 51-year-old Singaporean man and a 38-year-old female permanent resident.
All three local cases had attended a business conference organised by British company Servomex from Jan 20 to 22 at the hotel, from which four overseas cases also emerged.
As of yesterday, Singapore has had a total of 178 cases of the coronavirus, of which 96 have fully recovered and been discharged from hospital. Nine are in critical condition and in intensive care.
There are now four active clusters of locally transmitted cases here.
The largest involves a Chinese New Year dinner celebration at the Joy Garden restaurant at Safra Jurong on Feb 15. The cluster is linked to 39 cases.
The other clusters are from Wizlearn Technologies and a Seletar Aerospace Heights construction site.
The fourth involves the clusters at Grace Assembly of God and the Life Church and Missions Singapore, which are now considered one cluster after the two were found to be linked.
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GRAND HYATT
3
Total number of cases from the Grand Hyatt cluster which involved a conference attended by many foreigners. There were also four overseas cases linked to this cluster. All the local cases have recovered and been discharged.
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YONG THAI HANG
9
Total number of cases from the Yong Thai Hang medical shop cluster, the first local cluster to be found in Singapore. The first case from this cluster was confirmed on Feb 3. All cases have since been discharged.
When The Straits Times visited Grand Hyatt Singapore yesterday afternoon, the hotel lobby was almost void of guests, although there were four or five staff members at the check-in counter.
Asked about the hotel no longer being deemed an active cluster, Grand Hyatt Singapore hotel manager Parveen Kumar said: "We are certainly very delighted our implementation of various precautionary measures has led us to this positive outcome, and we will continue to remain vigilant and steadfast in following the guidelines recommended by international and local authorities."
Health products store Yong Thai Hang was closed when The Straits Times visited the store yesterday, and it could not be reached for comment.
