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SINGAPORE – People who attend Stay-at-Home Notices (SHN) are isolated to prevent them from transmitting the disease to anyone else if they have Covid-19.
Despite that, 13 SHN people at the Mandarin Orchard Singapore hotel may have been infected during their stay there, given the great similarity of the genome of the virus that had infected them. They had come to Singapore from 10 different countries.
Experts said this could have happened in a number of ways.
Professor Ooi Eng Eong from Duke-NUS School of Medicine, who specializes in microbiology and emerging infectious diseases, suggested that transmission in hotels be investigated and compliance with standard operating procedures audited.
In their statement on Saturday (December 19), the Singapore Ministry of Health (MOH) and the Singapore Tourism Board said: “The Government takes a serious view of any breach of protocols and will investigate and take action in case of non-compliance.” .
Associate Professor Hsu Liyang from the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, and an infectious disease expert by training, said that since all 13 people had served SHN between October 22 and November 11, and it was confirmed that they were infected between November 2 and 19, a single source of virus spread is unlikely.
He added: “If they were not found during your stay, then it could be the hotel staff or fomites (objects) that formed the transmission chain.”
Whether the spread could have been through towels and sheets “will depend on how they are distributed after cleaning,” he said.
His colleague, associate professor Alex Cook, the school’s vice dean for research, noted that given the length of time, the last of the 13 people would have checked into the hotel after the first had left. People are placed in SHN for up to 14 days.
Professor Cook added that it would be interesting to know if there was any “spatial clustering” of the 13 people, such as staying in rooms on the same floor close to each other.
Dr. Asok Kurup, who chairs the Infectious Diseases Physicians Chapter of the Academy of Medicine, said that in addition to transmission through a staff member or some objects, ventilation and sewage should also be considered as possible transmission sources.
But because of the way the coronavirus spreads, Dr. Kurup said that “a human factor is more likely” to be the cause of any transmission in the hotel.
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