Minister Ong acknowledges that a “mutant virus” from “higher risk countries” has broken through airport

At a press briefing yesterday (14 May), Transport Minister Ong Ye Kung acknowledged that a “mutant virus” from “higher risk countries” has broken through despite the best efforts put up by the people working at Changi Airport.

“I think they really did their best but unfortunately this mutant virus, very virulent, broke through the layers of defense,” Ong said.

He added that from the first 20 over infections, Changi Airport has detected and found that the infections are quite congregated.

“Most in fact congregate around one zone and this is the zone with a finger pier that receive higher risk countries’ arrivals including South Asia and then the conveyor belt and immigration,” he revealed. “So, that whole zone and infections were all around that area.”

“So that zone is our equivalent of ward 9D, like Tan Tock Seng Hospital, and from that zone, workers go have their lunch, go have their meals at the Terminal 3 basement 2 commercial areas and the food court,” he added.

“And we suspect from there, it transmitted to members of public that visited the place.”

Ong also said that after a student was detected to have been infected after visiting the food court at Terminal 3 basement 2, Changi Aiport took action to close down the entire B2 commercial area at T3 for deep cleaning.

“Then we started special ops with MOH to test 9000 workers in T1, T3 plus Jewel,” he said. “What is noteworthy 500 workers in Jewel has been tested and results are out and so far all negative.”

Ong, who will co-chair the multi-ministry taskforce (MTF), added, “The big worry now is the onward community transmission coming out of the commercial area in T3 B2. And that is why we are announcing this series of measures today.”

The government has announced that starting from tomorrow (16 May) till 13 Jun, there would be no dining-in. Only takeaway and delivery options will be allowed for all dine-in F&B establishments, including hawker centres and food courts, while the permissible group size for distinct visitors per household and social gatherings will be cut from 5 to 2 persons.

A total of 46 cases have been linked to airport cluster. Even though Ong did not name the “mutant virus” that has broken through the airport’s “layers of defense”, it has been found that at least 17 who tested preliminarily positive as of 13 May, had contracted the B1617 variant which originated from India.

Nevertheless, Ong was hopeful. He said, “We are cautiously hopeful that the airport worker cluster – just the worker cluster – hopefully can be contained through quarantine and testing, just like what has happened at the seaport and Tan Tock Seng Hospital.”

He didn’t mention anything about infections outside the airport affecting those non-airport workers. Ong is part of PAP 4G leaders currently contending for the next PM position.