Travellers from India must take COVID tests for Singapore trip
Singapore: All travellers from India who are not Singaporeans and permanent residents will have to take a coronavirus test within 72 hours before departing for Singapore from next Thursday, in a move to reduce the number of imported cases from the country.
Among the recent infections is a one-year-old Singaporean baby who had arrived from India on August 24. He was the only imported case on Tuesday. On Monday, two of the three imported cases had arrived from India.
The travellers will have to present a valid negative test result that has to be taken within 72 hours before their flight to Singapore, the Health Ministry said in a statement late on Wednesday.
It said the move had been taken to reduce the imported cases from India.
"We have been closely monitoring the COVID-19 situation in India. There have been reports of a resurgence of infections in India. Singapore has also observed a significant number of imported cases with recent travel history to India," the ministry said.
"As the global situation evolves, we will continue to adjust our border measures to manage the risk of importation and any onward transmission to the community," it added.
The tests will apply on top of the existing requirements of a 14-day stay-home notice (SHN) at dedicated facilities and a negative COVID-19 test before the end of their stay-home notice.
Travellers should be prepared to be subjected to control measures upon entry, including the payment of their stay at the SHN facilities and tests, according to the ministry.
Meanwhile, a minister said coronavirus cases continued to surface in previously cleared dormitories that are housing foreign workers as many of the workers there had not been exposed before and, therefore, remain susceptible to the infection.
"However, we are prepared for this," Second Minister for Manpower Tan See Leng told a virtual press conference on Wednesday.
Since the dormitories were declared cleared of the virus nearly a month ago on August 11, there has been an average of 45 workers testing positive for COVID-19 daily, the Health Ministry said.
These were detected primarily through active surveillance testing, such as rostered routine testing (RRT), and aggressive tracing and testing.
About 2 per cent of these newly-detected cases had positive serological tests, indicating past infections, according to a report by The Straits Times.
Asked if some of the cases in the cleared dormitories had slipped through undetected by the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, Tan said: "A PCR test is a test at that particular point in time. So, it's a snapshot of the status of the migrant worker at that particular point in time. And it's also a function of picking up the virus at a certain concentration."
He said it was not a matter of the sensitivity, adding that the test kits used here are "very sensitive tests".
"It's just that at that particular point in time, in the cycle of the incubation, we may not have picked up the virus because the manifestation of it, the concentration has still not reached that level yet," the minister was quoted as saying.
Because of this, the authorities decided to tighten the dragnet by rostering workers for testing every 14 days, a key lever in Singapore's detection strategy, said Tan, who cited studies showing that up to 30 per cent of infected individuals were asymptomatic.
In 14 days, about 98 per cent of the migrant worker dormitory population can be tested, he noted.
"Now, does it mean we miss out the 2 per cent? No, because the moment we pick up a re-emergent sort of a number, we actually lock down the block and we test everyone," he said.
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BJP stages walkout in Karnataka assembly over 'non-disbursal' of Gruha Lakshmi payout
Belagavi (Karnataka) (PTI): The opposition BJP on Wednesday staged a walkout from the Karnataka assembly protesting the alleged "non-disbursal" of two months' installments to 1.26 crore beneficiaries under a woman's assistance scheme of the state government.
The protest followed a heated debate in which the opposition accused the state government of providing "misleading" information regarding the payment status of the flagship Gruha Lakshmi scheme.
The saffron party members trooped into the well of the House and raised slogans, leading to the adjournment of the proceedings of the House for over an hour.
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The Gruha Lakshmi guarantee scheme is one of the five pre-poll promises of the ruling Congress. It provides Rs 2,000 monthly to women heads of the Below Poverty Line (BPL) families.
The BJP legislators accused Woman and Child Welfare Minister Laxmi Hebbalkar of having "misled" the House by giving false information to BJP MLA Mahesh Tenginkai that all the instalments till August have been paid under the scheme.
The opposition charged that the installments for the months of February and March this year were not paid.
The BJP MLAs' grouse was that they had been demanding an explanation from the Minister for the past three days, but she never turned up to provide information.
As soon as the session started, the opposition members trooped into the well of the House demanding the Minister's presence, which led to the adjournment.
When the members assembled again, the Minister replied that this is a unique flagship programme of the Congress government, which is a model for all the states.
Hebbalkar said she always strived to ensure that this scheme is implemented religiously.
"However, when I checked, I noticed that two months' installments were not paid to the beneficiaries through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT). If my reply has hurt anyone, then I express my regret," she said.
Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar, who came to the defence of Hebbalkar, said the BJP should apologise for the lie in the Union Budget.
"Despite the Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announcing Rs 5,300 crore for the Upper Bhadra Irrigation Project in the budget, the money was not given to Karnataka. You should question that as well," Shivakumar underlined.
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To this, Leader of Opposition in the assembly R Ashoka said the matter was raised because not only were the BJP members hurt but also the 1.26 crore beneficiaries who were eagerly waiting for the money.
Demanding that the lie be expunged from the House records, he insisted on a date for when the backlog will be paid to the beneficiaries.
The Minister said she was apologising for giving a wrong reply, but she was peeved at the way a woman was targeted in the House.
Objecting to this statement, BJP MLA S Suresh Kumar asked her to refrain from playing victim card and bring up the issue of gender, caste and religious discrimination as it was a matter related to 1.26 crore people.
Ashoka and the BJP MLAs then staged a walkout, saying the Minister's reply was not satisfactory.
