The youngest person to be infected with the disease in Singapore is a six-month-old child, whose parents are also infected with the novel coronavirus from Wuhan now known as 2019-nCoV acute respiratory syndrome (ARD).
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These cases are part of the four new cases announced by the Ministry of Health on Wednesday, February 5. These are local transmissions, associated with a group of tourists that had wandered around several spots in Singapore.
According to a report by The Straits Times, 20 tourists from Guangxi, China, visited health products shop Yong Thai Hang in Cavan Road in Lavender. Three previous cases were announced on Tuesday, February 4, and with these additional four cases, the tour group has essentially contaminated seven people in Singapore who had not been associated with Wuhan when the disease spread.
Two travellers from that group were infected with the coronavirus, as confirmed by Chinese health officials.
The MOH says there is still no widespread outbreak of the disease as of this time. There are currently 28 cases of the 2019-nCoV ARD in Singapore.
New line of transmission
According to a separate report from Reuters, a newly-born infant is the youngest infected person as of today’s report, and Chinese health officials suspect that the baby received the virus from its mother.
The report said that the baby was born on February 2 to a woman infected with the virus. When the doctors tested the baby for the disease 30 hours after the birth, the test came up positive, and they had noticed lung and liver problems with the child.
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While the report said that the child had no fever or cough, the doctors noticed that the baby had difficulty breathing and tat the lugs showed signs of infection. Liver functions also had some abnormalities.
This brings another transmission vector for the disease, which may mean that infected mothers can pass the virus onto their children–but what that means beyond symptoms, is too early to tell.
Doctors are still unable to confirm if the liver abnoralities are associated with the virus or not.
More cases involving infants
A previous case where a baby’s nanny was infected with the virus showed that transmission was possible, as the mother was infected. The baby was born on January 13 and started to show symptoms on January 29. The report said that the baby was born healthy.
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“Whether it was the baby’s nanny who passed to the virus to the mother who passed it to the baby, we cannot be sure at the moment. But we can confirm that the baby was in close contact with patients infected with the new coronavirus, which says newborns can also be infected,” Zeng Lingkong, chief physician of the Wuhan Children Hospital’s neonatal medicine department said.
All the infants infected with the disease are allegedly in stable condition.
Face mask fiasco
Just as face masks are being claimed in various hubs across the island, some of the worst and most weird behaviour concerning these masks have emerged.
A Reddit thread mentioned an insurance agent using “free masks” to lure potential customers into talking to them. Another report also said that someone was selling the masks they received from the government on Carousell. The listing has allegedly been taken down.
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