New Covid-19 patient reported to work at Bishan MRT even after becoming symptomatic

Singapore— A woman who is listed among the new coronavirus patients in the Ministry of Health’s (MOH) report for May 18 is said to have gone to work at Bishan MRT even after she showed symptoms of the infection.

The MOH said that the 58-year-old woman went to work on May 14, despite feeling some of the symptoms of Covid-19. She later tested positive on May 17. Contact tracing is still ongoing for the woman, and her case is at the moment considered by the MOH as an unlinked one. No other details about the woman have been made available so far.

The woman is one of the two Singaporeans who tested positive for the coronavirus in the MOH’s latest report, the other being a 50-year-old man who works at 1020 Tai Seng Avenue and is linked to an infection cluster in that place. He started showing symptoms of the infection on May 13 and was also confirmed positive for the coronavirus on May 17.

Singapore’s new community cases have continued to go down. Two weeks ago it was at seven per day, and last week it went down to three per day. This week, the MOH said, community cases have gone down even further to two per day.

The MOH report also showed the smallest number of new cases in five weeks, which was “partly due to fewer tests being processed as one testing laboratory is reviewing its processes following an earlier apparatus calibration issue, and will need time to ramp up its testing capacity.”

Netizens were unhappy that the woman went to work even though she was already feeling unwell.

Some however, urged other netizens not to judge the woman harshly, since the circumstances of her reporting for work even when she was already symptomatic for Covid-19 are unknown.

Others, though, feared that her actions would spark a fresh round of infections.

Some netizens wondered if SMRT checks its employees for symptoms daily, or whether its workers were told to stay home upon showing even slight symptoms of the infection.