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SINGAPORE: A student prosecuted for exposing others to the risk of COVID-19 by failing to comply with her stay-at-home notice after arriving from the UK told the court on Wednesday (March 10) that she did not know she had to leave. home immediately.
Esther Tan Ling Ying, 24, was studying for an Honors BA in Acting in the UK. He returned to Singapore on March 23, 2020, shortly after Singapore implemented a stay-at-home regime to slow the spread of COVID-19.
She reportedly ate with her parents at Orchis Food Court in Terminal 1 of the airport, before going to the Clementi Family and Aesthetics Clinic to get medication for her stuffy nose.
He tested positive for the disease a few days after his arrival.
Tan is challenging a single charge under the Infectious Diseases Act of exposing others to the risk of COVID-19 infection.
After landing at Changi Airport, an officer from the Immigration and Checkpoint Authority (ICA) briefed her, who testified that he told her to head home immediately.
However, Tan testified that he did not tell her this and that there was no indication on his stay-at-home notice document that he had to. He said in court that based on what his friends had told him, he thought the stay-at-home order would start the next day.
He later settled on the position that he thought the order would start the same day he returned to Singapore, but only after he got home.
When questioning her on the stand, Deputy Prosecutor Sanjiv Vaswani asked Tan why she had written in a statement to the authorities that she was aware when she received the stay-at-home notice that she had to return home immediately.
“Like I said before, I was very scared and my judgment clouded,” Tan said.
Mr. Vaswani told him that the information that he had to return home immediately had to come from the ICA officer, as it was not on the stay-at-home notice document and that the officer had testified that he had told him.
Tan disagreed. She is also accused of lying about her travel history when she visited the clinic. The prosecutor accused her of knowing she had flu symptoms, but she said she thought it was her long-standing sinus problems that were wrong.
He admitted to having lied to the doctor about his return to Singapore, but maintained that his reason for going to the clinic was to obtain medication for his sinus problem.
Mr. Vaswani asked Tan why he did not receive nasal sprays at the pharmacy or asked the assigned representative to monitor his needs during the stay-at-home notice period to obtain the required medication.
Tan said the nasal sprays would not work due to the severity of her sinus condition and that it did not occur to her that the representative could help her obtain medication.
FISCAL PLAYS A CLIP OF HIS “COUGH” WITH THE MASK DOWN
During his lawyer’s questioning in the morning, Tan had said that it was not necessary for him to wear a mask on the plane, but that he chose to wear one until he returned home to Singapore.
Vaswani played a CCTV video in court of her going to the clinic in Clementi. He was shown entering the clinic with a mask on his face, but his nose was exposed.
Tan was shown sitting and using her phone, and putting the mask under her mouth before coughing twice.
When Vaswani asked Tan if he had coughed in the video, she said, “I can’t tell if he was coughing.”
However, he agreed that he had potentially exposed others to the risk of infection by lowering his mask at the clinic.
Mr. Vaswani then showed him a warning statement that he had given to the police, where he wrote: “My family was anxious and terrified that I would visit the clinic as soon as I landed, because they feared for me (that I) the disease Also. I wanted to get medicine from the doctor because I was afraid that my flu had not recovered … And I did not want to increase the risk by passing it on to my parents. “
Tan acknowledged writing this, but maintained that his judgment was clouded and that he was not thinking clearly.
He said he was “under a lot of pressure” from the investigating officer when he completed his statement and insisted that he did not have the flu and instead suffered from sinus problems.
“Ms. Tan, as you suffer from chronic allergic rhinitis, you should know that it cannot be spread from person to person,” Vaswani said.
“I don’t know,” she replied.
Mr. Vaswani told him that he made up this excuse to avoid guilt, but Tan disagreed. She said the doctor had testified a day earlier to diagnose her with an upper respiratory infection and not allergic rhinitis, but Tan said she didn’t know what that was.
He reiterated that his judgment was clouded and he was not thinking clearly when giving his various statements as he had been in the hospital for about a month for COVID-19 treatment while taking care of his studies at the same time.
WAS THE VIRUS SUFFERING JET LAG? ASKS THE ATTORNEY
“Ms Tan, you stated that you had flu-like symptoms when you were in the UK before you returned. You were given an SHN which explained that you should stay home as a precaution,” Vaswani said.
“It is our evidence that you had respiratory symptoms when you presented to the doctor. In addition, we have heard evidence from (the doctor) that you told him that several other students from your university, as well as a professor who had returned from Spain had caught COVID-19 “.
Tan disagreed, saying he didn’t know why the doctor said that.
“His attorney did not contest this aspect of (the doctor’s) evidence,” Vaswani continued.
He told Tan that he clearly had reason to believe he had contracted COVID-19 when he returned to Singapore, but she disagreed.
“You claim that ICA told you that you had to be home for 14 days. This morning you said that it is logical that the SHN will start the next day,” Vaswani said.
“Mrs. Tan, what kind of logic is that, if we are trying to prevent a pandemic, but we allow people to roam and just stay home the next day? There is no logic in that. Do you agree?”
“I agree,” Tan replied.
“His claim that he was under the impression that the SHN starts the next day, and his logic, is completely wrong,” Vaswani said. “Were you under the impression that the virus was also suffering from some kind of jet lag and would only wake up the next day?”
Tan disagreed. After her defense attorney, Tan Cheng Kiong, re-examined her, he said he did not suspect she had COVID-19, because she had been isolated and “there were no COVID cases in my school.”
She said that none of her schoolmates had contracted COVID-19 and that “there were no teachers who returned from Spain.”
The trial continues on Friday. The defense originally had one more witness scheduled for Wednesday, but the person had returned to the UK. Arrangements are being made to see if the person can testify via video call.
If convicted of exposing others to the risk of COVID-19 infection, Tan could be jailed for up to six months, fined up to S $ 10,000, or both.
