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15 Apr 2021  (397 Views) 
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Covid-19 crisis


Community spread by Papua New Guinea national

This news report describes in detail the movements of the Papua New Guinea national who was infected by the covid virus in Singapore.

He contracted the virus while in Singapore and is suspected to be linked to two previous confirmed cases. 

He is asymptomatic, i.e. the virus was mild and did not develop any serious symptoms.

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/covid-19-papua-new-guinea-singapore-sole-community-case-cluster-14620002  

I wish to ask the following question - If the two previous infected cases was responsible for passing the virus to him, why did they not pass the virus to other people that they must have been in contact over the past days or weeks?

Surely 1 case cannot be described as a cluster?

In the absence of many cases, I draw the following tentative conclusions:

a) Some people, e.g. this PNG national, is more susceptible to get infected while other people are not.

b) The PNG national is asymptomatic. The chance of spreading the virus is low. 

c) The PNG national happened to be tested. Many other people, who might also be infected with a low virus load, were not tested and therefore were not detected.

I am aware that my tentative conclusion could be wrong. I would like the media to ask these questions and to seek the answers. 

If the media persist in giving detailed report of the episode and did not ask the critical questions, I will continue to be skeptical about the risk.

Tan Kin Lian
 


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