COVID-19: Changi Airport worker, and incoming passenger test preliminarily positive for Omicron

Singapore — The Omicron variant’s first detected local target in Singapore is a front-line worker at Changi Airport.

She is 24 and part of the passenger service staff at Terminal 1 and Terminal 3. That is, she did not work at Terminal 4 which had been visited by three other people who tested positive earlier for the Omicron variant. Those three cases were all imported.

However, she had worked in the transit holding area, and that is where she may have come into contact with transit passengers from countries known to have the Omicron variant of the Covid-19 virus.

She is one of the two most recent cases that tested preliminarily positive for the Omicron variant. The other person is an imported case.

Both of them are not only fully vaccinated but had also received their booster shots, the Health Ministry (MOH) noted in a press release on Thursday.

The airport worker had no symptoms when she tested positive for Covid-19 on Dec 8 as part of weekly rostered routine testing for border frontline workers.

When she was notified of the positive test result, she self-isolated at home and was then taken to the National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID).

The other case, also a woman, is a 46-year-old Singapore permanent resident who returned to Singapore through the Vaccinated Travel Lane (VTL) from Germany on Dec 6.

Her pre-departure test in France on Dec 4 was negative, as was the PCR test she took when she arrived in Singapore on Dec 6.

But the next day, she had a runny nose, and on Dec 8, she sought medical treatment. That is when she tested positive.

Both women are in isolation wards at NCID. MOH is conducting aggressive contact tracing to ringfence the cases.

All their close contacts will be placed on 10-day quarantine at designated facilities and must take a PCR test at the start and end of their quarantine.

All airport staff are already PCR-tested every seven days. As an additional precaution, they will also be required to conduct daily antigen rapid tests (ART) for the next seven days.

“Given its high transmissibility and spread to many parts of the world, we should expect to find more Omicron cases at our borders and also within our community,” said the health ministry.

It added: “It is important for everyone to continue to play their part and remain vigilant to mitigate the spread of Covid-19, and to come forward to receive your vaccination or booster dose when offered.” /TISG

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COVID-19 update: Omicron may be no worse than earlier variants, Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine does offer some protection