SAWT BEIRUT INTERNATIONAL

| 29 March 2024, Friday |

Singapore airport steps up measures after COVID-19 outbreak

Singapore’s airport announced on Monday that it was tightening measures to keep out the COVID-19, including further segregating arrivals and nearly 14,000 workers into different risk zones, after it became the country’s largest active coronavirus cluster.

The Changi airport cluster, which involves more than 100 infections, may have initially spread through a worker who helped an infected family arriving in the country, the authorities said. Some of the cases included the B.1.617 variant that was first detected in India.

In a statement, the airport operator said workers in the highest risk zone – the terminal piers, arrival immigration hall and baggage claim – will be inoculated, segregated from other staff, provided with full protective clothing and subject to enhanced testing.

It added that passengers from very high-risk countries will be escorted through immigration to their quarantine facilities without passing through the other terminals.

This month, Singapore’s Health Minister Ong Ye Kung said airport staff who received travelers from high-risk countries may have infected others in the airport’s food outlets.

The airport outbreak is part of a resurgence of cases in Singapore, which recorded 24 local infections on Monday, that follows months of reporting few or no local cases each day.

    Source:
  • Reuters