Covid-19: Couple charged with lying to MOH officials about whereabouts during contact tracing, quarantine

SINGAPORE — A foreign couple on Friday (Feb 28) became the first individuals charged in court in relation to the Covid-19 outbreak, about a week after the man fully recovered from the infection and was discharged from hospital.

Chinese nationals Hu Jun, 38, and his wife Shi Sha, 36, face one and four charges respectively under the Infectious Diseases Act. 

Hu is from Wuhan and does not live in Singapore, while Shi lives here.

The Ministry of Health (MOH) has previously said that Hu arrived in Singapore on Jan 22 and was confirmed to have contracted Covid-19 on Jan 31.

Shi was then identified as a close contact and issued a quarantine order on Feb 1. Her husband was discharged from hospital on Feb 19.

He is accused of obstructing the contact tracing work of MOH officials by lying about his whereabouts and activities between 1pm and 3pm at the Singapore General Hospital (SGH).

He allegedly told an official that apart from a dinner at Ion Orchard shopping mall on Jan 22, as well as a walk around the neighbourhood at Loft @ Nathan at 31 Nathan Road on Jan 24, he had stayed indoors from Jan 22 to 29.

Shi was charged with three counts of similarly obstructing MOH officials and also failing to comply with the quarantine order.

She is accused of telling an MOH official on Jan 30 that: 

• She and her husband had stayed in unit #05-10 at the Loft @ Nathan unit from Jan 25 to 28

• She did not stay at unit #05-23

• She did not know the people staying there and had never met them

• She and her husband flagged down a taxi from the road outside Loft @ Nathan to take him to SGH on Jan 29

She is also accused of telling the same official on Feb 1, while under quarantine from Jan 31 to Feb 12 at unit #05-10, that she had not stayed at a hotel. 

On Feb 3, she allegedly repeated to the official on two occasions that she and Hu had taken a taxi to SGH.

However, the MOH said in a statement on Wednesday that it was able to establish the couple’s true movements through detailed investigations. Details of their movements were not revealed.

The charges were served to them on Tuesday in view of the potentially serious repercussions of the false information they gave, and the risk they could have posed to public health.

The couple, who are represented by lawyer Chung Ting Fai, will return to court on March 20.

Anyone convicted of an offence under the Infectious Diseases Act can be fined up to S$10,000, jailed up to six months, or both.

As of Thursday evening, there have been 96 confirmed cases in Singapore. Sixty-six of those have fully recovered while 30 are still in hospital.

Three new cases were announced on Thursday, including a 12-year-old student from Raffles Institution who fell ill on Feb 21 and has stayed home since. 

The school, as well as the MOE Language Centre in Bishan where the student attended a class, suspended classes on Friday.