6,500 Singapore Poly students, staff to be tested for Covid
Singapore Polytechnic (SP) started a Covid-19 swab exercise yesterday after three students had tested positive for the virus.
A total of 6,500 students and staff, as well as foodcourt vendors who were on campus on or after April 29, will be progressively tested.
As an added precaution, the school will defer practical classes till a later date or conduct them online.
There is currently no evidence that the three cases are linked to one another, said SP in a statement.
"However, given the three positive cases, as well as the locations and proximity of their schools in SP's campus, the Ministry of Health (MOH) has decided to take an additional precautionary measure to reduce the risk of transmission within our campus," SP added.
The five schools involved are the School of Computing, the Media, Arts and Design School, the School of Business, the School of Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering and the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering. Only the Continuing Education and Training (CET) students from the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering will be swabbed.
The three students who tested positive are a Year 2 student from the Media, Arts and Design school, a Year 1 student from the School of Computing and an IT engineer enrolled in a part-time CET course.
The testing exercise will take place at SP's Dover Road campus.
Individuals will be informed via SMS of the details of their swabs.
MOH will reassess the situation and the overall risk level before deciding whether the rest of the SP community has to be swabbed.
A leave of absence has been issued to the three students' classmates, and the SP campus had been cleaned and disinfected. SP also urged all staff and students to monitor their health and to see a doctor immediately if they feel unwell.
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