Singapore hotel suspected for spreading virus after used for quarantine

Thursday, December 24, 2020

Singapore hotel alleged for virus spread after serving as the quarantine destination. It is suspected to have spread virus among the travellers that has trace of past infection. The situation is raising concern over undetected transmission of virus in the country within the local people.

The Mandarin Orchard, a hotel that welcomed recreational guest’s on the other hand sheltered quarantined travellers on designated floors, is now scaling back operations as the Singapore government probes the situation. Serological tests for 571 of the hotel’s staff have so far indicated the likelihood of past infection for 11 people, the Singapore Ministry of Health said in a statement on Monday.

The situation is difficult as on Saturday there were 13 cases of infection among travellers quarantining at the Mandarin Orchard had a “high genetic similarity” despite the patients arriving from 10 different countries, raising the suspicion that the hotel has become a site of transmission.

Quarantine hotels and the management of foreign arrivals have been a vulnerability for many countries as governments try to balance the risk of overseas infection slipping into local communities while allowing some essential travel.

Lapses at a quarantine hotel led to an unprecedented outbreak in Australia’s Victoria state that was contained only through a brutal three-month lockdown, while lax management of air and shipping crew arrivals was blamed for overturning Hong Kong’s containment success earlier this year.

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