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SINGAPORE: The latest batch of COVID-19 in a migrant worker dormitory has closed, which means There are no active conglomerates in Singapore since the pandemic began.
The Ministry of Health (MOH) announced the closure of the cluster in the Cassia @ Penjuru dormitory on Tuesday (Nov 24), after 28 consecutive days without a new infection linked to it.
“With the closure of this group, there are no active COVID-19 groups for the first time since February 3, 2020,” the Health Ministry said on Tuesday.
READ: Singapore Reports 18 New COVID-19 Cases; 2 weeks without local transmission
Since the first COVID-19 case was reported in Singapore on January 23, the case count has risen to more than 58,000 cases, with 28 deaths from the disease.
The first group was reported on February 4 at the Yong Thai Hang Medical Hall, a Chinese medicine shop that caters mainly to tourists from China.
Three days later, the condition level of Singapore’s Disease Outbreak Response System (DORSCON) rose from yellow to orange, as more local cases emerged with no links to previous cases or travel history to China.
More groups soon emerged, including at Life Church and Missions Singapore, the Grand Hyatt Hotel, Grace Assembly of God Church, and the Seletar Aerospace Heights construction site.
Contact tracing efforts established a link between the Life Church and Missions groups and Grace Assembly of God, and serological tests were used for the first time to discover the link.
In the first week of March, a new group linked to an event at SAFRA Jurong was identified. The group, which included several older people, grew in number during the rest of the month.
Even as more security measures were enacted, including the cancellation or postponement of all ticketed cultural, sporting and entertainment events with 250 participants or more, the number of local cases increased and surpassed 200 infections in mid-March.
By the end of March, three people had died from COVID-19 in Singapore. Several new groups are announced, including one in dorm S11 in Punggol.
This would become the first of dozens of bedroom clusters as the coronavirus spreads through bedrooms.
There have been more than 54,500 cases related to foreign workers’ dormitories since the first two infections were reported on March 29.
Workers queue for food in dorm S11 in Punggol on April 6, 2020 (Photo: Reuters / Edgar Su).
The number of infections in bedrooms peaked at more than 1,000 per day, before dropping slightly to hundreds of new cases daily.
Singapore entered a circuit breaker on April 7, with the aim of slowing the spread of the coronavirus in the community, while isolation measures were applied to contain the growing groups in the bedrooms.
The group at the Thomson Lane branch of Lee Ah Mooi Old Age Home was identified in April, the first in a nursing home.
As the circuit breaker continued, local occurrences began to decline, causing the clusters to close.
But in the bedrooms, the growing cases of COVID-19 did not immediately improve, despite strict isolation measures and testing.
On-site medical facilities for workers in Avery Lodge foreign worker dormitory. (Photo: Singapore Ministry of Manpower)
READ: A timeline: Singapore’s largest COVID-19 cluster in S11 bedroom shuts down
CLUSTERS REEMERGED ALL CLOSED
After months of testing and isolation, the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) declared on August 19 that all bedrooms were COVID-19 free.
But three days later, a new cluster was identified at Sungei Tengah Lodge, Singapore’s largest purpose-built dormitory that was previously cleared of COVID-19 on July 21.
Sungei Tengah’s new group would increase to 216 cases.
The Sungei Tengah Lodge workers’ dormitory on Old Choa Chu Kang Road was declared an isolation area after an increase in COVID-19 cases there.
Less than a month later, 21 new clusters were identified in dormitories that had previously been cleared of COVID-19.
The largest of these new groups was at Sungei Tengah, followed by Avery Lodge Dormitory, Westlite Toh Guan, and CDPL Tuas Dormitory.
Rigorous routine testing was started, and from these groups about 900 new cases emerged in total.
It was “part of the plan” for the cases to be detected by routine tests listed, Human Resources Minister Josephine Teo said.
READ: New cases of COVID-19 in bedrooms detected by routine tests are ‘part of the plan’: Josephine Teo
Hundreds of thousands of dormitory-residing workers were scheduled for routine checklist testing. Authorities warned employers that workers who had not been scheduled for the tests were not allowed to return to work.
The daily number of new cases in dormitories dropped to single digits, and on October 13, Singapore reported no new cases there for the first time in more than six months.
READ: Timeline: No new COVID-19 cases in Singapore bedrooms for the first time in over 6 months
Daily new infections in dormitories ranged from zero to two cases during the rest of October and November, when the Ministry of Health began shutting down new groups.
On Tuesday, the last group of dormitories, at Cassia @ Penjuru, was closed, ending the groups active in Singapore.
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