Novel coronavirus: Several businesses visited by tour group linked to local transmissions still closed

SINGAPORE — Four of the businesses that were visited by a tour group linked to seven cases of the novel coronavirus here remain closed on Thursday (Feb 6), with neighbouring shopkeepers saying that they have been closed since Monday.

However, these neighbours said that they were unaware of the reason behind the closures until Thursday, when TODAY visited. 

On Wednesday, the Ministry of Health (MOH) announced that four new people have tested positive for the coronavirus, including a six month-old male infant.

Of these, three had made contact with a tour group from Guangxi, China consisting of 20 tourists. Four other people here also had contact with the group, which visited Singapore on Jan 22 and 23, and later transited through Singapore again on Jan 27.

The Chinese health authorities have since confirmed that two travellers from the tour group are carriers of the coronavirus.

While in Singapore, the group visited traditional Chinese medicine shop Yong Thai Hang on Cavan Road off Lavender Street, where two of the locally infected patients work, Diamond Industries Jewellery Company on Harbour Drive in Pasir Panjang, where one infected patient works, as well as Meeting You Restaurant (14 Hamilton Road off Lavender Street), Royal Dragon Restaurant (2 Havelock Road), T Galleria by DFS (25 Scotts Road) and D’Resort @ Downtown East (1 Pasir Ris Close).

Yong Thai Hang, Royal Dragon Restaurant, Meeting You Restaurant and Diamond Industries were shut when TODAY visited on Thursday. 

Mr Wong Loke Fong, 79, a cleaner at Havelock II mall, where Royal Dragon Restaurant is located, said that he saw workers at the restaurant packing up and moving their equipment out of the unit last Friday (Jan 31). 

He added that the restaurant mainly caters to tourists from China, and that it is a popular place with up to hundreds of customers eating there daily. 

Although Mr Wong was not worried after hearing that the Guangxi tour group had visited Royal Dragon, he said that it might be wise for him to start wearing a mask while he worked.

Ms Marie Clores, 42, a nail manicurist from Anna Nails that is next to the restaurant, said that it has been closed since Monday. She saw cleaners entering the restaurant on Wednesday. 

Neither Mr Wong nor Ms Clores knew why the restaurant was closed, and it was business as usual for other tenants at the mall.

Meeting You Restaurant on Hamilton Road has also been closed since the start of the week, shopkeepers at neighbouring units said. 

A worker at a hardware store next to the restaurant, who declined to be named, said: “I saw that they have been shifting boxes of meat out from their store since last Wednesday.” 

He added that before Singapore's Feb 1 entry ban on visitors with recent travel history to mainland China, around 10 busloads of tourists would visit the restaurant daily from Monday to Saturday.

He said that he was not worried about contracting the virus, but was concerned that his shop’s business would be affected if more people knew that the tour group had visited the restaurant next door.

A spokesperson for D’Resort @ Downtown East told TODAY that the Ministry of Health has already done contact-tracing on their premises, and that their staff members “have been cleared”. 

“D’Resort has implemented precautionary measures such as increasing the frequency of cleaning and disinfecting at high-traffic areas, among other protocols to protect the well-being of our guests and staff,” she added. 

A spokesperson for real estate investment firm Mapletree, the landlord for Diamond Industries Jewellery Company, said that its tenant's premises were disinfected.

It has also taken steps to clean and disinfect common areas of the building PSA Vista, where Diamond Industries Jewellery Company is located. 

“Prior to the case, we already increased the frequency of the cleaning and disinfection of common areas, lifts and toilets and have instituted daily temperature checks for our property management staff and service providers at PSA Vista,” the spokesperson for Mapletree said. 

Mr Masagos Zulkifli, Minister of Environment and Water Resources, said on Wednesday that the places visited by patients who have contracted the coronavirus will be “properly disinfected”.

He said that NEA will supervise the cleaning of these areas to ensure that it is safe for the public. 

TODAY has reached out to NEA to ask whether it has supervised cleaning at the other places visited by the tour group.