Hotel staff in contact with SHN individuals to be rostered for routine Covid-19 testing

TO prevent Covid-19 transmission from designated Stay-Home Notice (SHN) hotels, all hotel staff in contact with individuals serving their SHNs in such facilities will now be placed on a 14-day rostered routine testing (RRT) regime.

This was announced in Parliament on Monday by Education Minister Lawrence Wong, who co-chairs the Covid-19 multi-ministry task force. Mr Wong was delivering a ministerial statement on the government's response to the pandemic - the third such update to Parliament, following the ones in March and May 2020.

The RRT regime applies to workers in sectors and activities that are deemed at higher-risk for Covid-19 transmission. Presently, this includes workers in the construction, marine and process sectors, as well as airport and marine workers. Such workers must be tested every 14 days for Covid-19.

Now, the RRT regime will apply to staff in designated SHN hotels as well.

Last month, 13 travellers with Covid-19 were reported to have served their SHNs at the Mandarin Orchard Singapore hotel between Oct 22 and Nov 11. Despite coming from 10 different countries, the cases were observed by Singapore's Ministry of Health (MOH) to have "high genetic similarity", which meant it was possible the transmissions had occurred at the hotel.

Subsequently, 571 employees underwent polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, which returned negative results for ongoing Covid-19 infections. However, serological tests for 11 employees were positive, indicating likely past infections.

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Some 394 guests also underwent PCR tests, with several testing positive. However, the MOH said on Jan 1 that these cases were unlinked to the original 13 travellers. The hotel was allowed to reopen on Jan 2, after it was disinfected.

"We recognise that our containment measures depend on good management of the hotels which are used as SHN facilities," said Mr Wong. "We make sure these facilities have strict protocols in place to segregate persons on SHN from all other guests."

He added: "These include placing them in segregated blocks, wings or floors, clearly demarcating their route of movement, and instituting regular cleaning and disinfection regimes. Persons on SHN are not allowed to use common facilities in the hotels.

"Once there is a confirmed case, comprehensive contact tracing and ring-fencing of contacts, including staff working in SHN facilities, will be done to prevent further transmission."

Addressing the transmissions that took place at the Mandarin Orchard Singapore hotel, Mr Wong said that based on preliminary investigations, no breaches in protocols had occurred. However, investigations suggested that infection protocols could be improved.

He cited better crowd regulation and improved ventilation systems as two areas for improvement, in addition to the new measure of rostering hotel staff for routine Covid-19 testing.

"We will continue to work closely with all SHN hotels to ensure that infection prevention protocols are robust," he said.