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65-year-old housewife from Safra Jurong Covid-19 cluster jailed for not disclosing secret meetings with male friend

SINGAPORE — A 65-year-old woman was sentenced to five months’ jail on Friday (Jan 8) for not telling contact tracers about her secret meetings with a male friend as she did not want her family and friends to spread rumours about them having an affair.

Housewife Oh Bee Hiok met a Covid-19 patient at the Joy Garden Restaurant at Safra Jurong on Feb 15 during a dinner and karaoke event, but did not tell contact tracers.

Housewife Oh Bee Hiok met a Covid-19 patient at the Joy Garden Restaurant at Safra Jurong on Feb 15 during a dinner and karaoke event, but did not tell contact tracers.

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  • After testing positive for Covid-19, she failed to tell contact tracers that she met a close male friend five times
  • She then told the man to hide their meetings from health officers
  • She also did not inform the authorities that she had attended the dinner at Safra Jurong, which was a large cluster at the time

 

SINGAPORE — A 65-year-old woman was sentenced to five months’ jail on Friday (Jan 8) for not telling contact tracers about her secret meetings with a male friend as she did not want her family and friends to spread rumours about them having an affair.

Housewife Oh Bee Hiok even omitted telling contact tracers that she attended a Safra Jurong dinner which at one point was Singapore’s largest cluster.

On five occasions, while her husband was away playing badminton, she met a close male friend for a meal, but did not disclose this to health officers.

After she was admitted to hospital for Covid-19, she called the man to tell him not to inform health officers about their meetings. The man, 72-year-old Lim Kiang Hong, eventually contracted Covid-19.

On Friday, Oh pleaded guilty to one count of hindering a Ministry of Health (MOH) officer from her work by deliberately omitting information.

Two other charges of hindering another MOH officer and instigating Mr Lim not to reveal their meetings were taken into consideration during sentencing.

NOT FORTHCOMING WITH CONTACT TRACING

The court heard that Oh was admitted to the Singapore General Hospital on Feb 24 last year with high fever and tested positive for Covid-19 two days later.

While the authorities were trying to map out her activities for contact tracing, she “drip-fed” information, adding bits of new information each time she was asked, Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Jane Lim said.

When an epidemiologist first asked her to list the places she visited over the past few weeks, she repeatedly tried to end the conversation quickly, saying she was tired.

The next morning, an MOH officer called her to verify the details compiled by the epidemiologist. Oh told the officer that she had visited a temple for a Chinese New Year dinner — a fact she did not tell the epidemiologist.

A few days later, while conducting contact tracing for another Covid-19 patient, a second MOH officer found out that the patient had met Oh at the Joy Garden Restaurant at Safra Jurong on Feb 15 during a dinner and karaoke event.

Oh, when contacted by the second MOH officer on this, did not deny visiting the restaurant but insisted that she was only there for a short while.

She was also defensive and not forthcoming when questioned by the officer.

MOH then began investigations into Oh.

MOH INVESTIGATIONS BEGIN

Through reviewing car park gantry records, surveillance footage, Mr Lim’s credit card records and call logs, MOH investigators found that Oh had met Mr Lim on five occasions between Feb 4 and Feb 20, before she was admitted for Covid-19.

They met at restaurants mostly at malls in the western regions. These included Sakuraya Fish Mart at West Coast Plaza, Ya Kun Kaya Toast at IMM Building and Tonkatsu by Mai Maison at Westgate.

On March 8, an MOH investigation officer met Oh to record her statement about the matter but she did not disclose any of these activities to the officer.

The next day, she came clean.

She told the MOH officer she would usually meet Mr Lim on Tuesdays and Thursdays for lunch, tea or dinner as she did not have to cook and her husband would be away playing badminton.

“She did not want her family or Lim’s family to find out that they were going out so frequently, as she thought that their family and friends would suspect that they were in a romantic relationship and spread rumours about them being in an extra-marital affair,” DPP Lim said.

Mr Lim eventually tested positive for Covid-19 on March 20.

‘PREOCCUPIED WITH THOUGHTS OF DEATH’

DPP Lim sought the maximum punishment of six months’ jail, arguing that there was serious harm caused given that Oh was not just a Covid-19 suspect but had already tested positive when she withheld the information from health officers.

She had done so despite knowing her grandson had also tested positive, DPP Lim said, adding that her actions led to a significant waste of public resources.

She even withheld the fact that she was at the Safra Jurong dinner, which was a well-known cluster at that point of time, DPP Lim said.

Before the explosion of Covid-19 cases in migrant workers’ dormitories, the Safra Jurong cluster was once the country’s largest with 47 cases linked to it.

Oh’s lawyer Goh Teck Wee asked for a fine instead.

He said Oh was very ill at the time and was “preoccupied with thoughts of death”.

"She is a housewife. She does not maintain a calendar unlike most working people. It would have been very hard for her to recall her last 14 days of activity," he said.

But if Oh was concerned that she might die, then it must mean that she would have been fully aware of the potential consequences of any spread of her virus due to her failure to co-operate with the authorities, District Judge Marvin Bay said in sentencing her.

The judge added that Oh’s desire to maintain the secrecy of her meetings with Mr Lim were “self-serving and selfish” acts.

“While I acknowledge Madam Oh’s plea of guilt, I would note that the extent of her non-co-operation was of virtually incorrigible proportions,” the judge said.

Oh has filed an appeal against her sentence.

For hindering health officers, she could have been jailed up to six months or fined up to S$10,000, or punished with both.

Related topics

Covid-19 coronavirus contact tracing court crime

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