The Ministry of Health (MOH) has reported a total of 16,883 new cases on 16th February 2022 with 13 fatalities.

16,689 are local and 194 are imported cases.

The weekly growth rate is down to 1.29 (Yesterday was 1.34)

Case details

Of the 16,883 new cases, 12,767 cases are tested positive through ART of which 12,714 are local and 53 are imported.

4,116 cases were confirmed after testing with PCR with 3,975 local cases and 141 imported cases.

MOH reported 13 death cases bringing to death toll to 926.

Other data:

There are currently 1,352 patients in the hospital with 153 of them requiring oxygen and 35 are in the ICU.

94% of Singapore’s population has completed the vaccination program.

64% of Singapore’s population has received booster shots.

Statistics

In total Singapore has recorded 514,880 COVID-19 cases from the start of the coronavirus.

The death toll is 926.

In the last 28 days, there were 206,299 amount of cases with 99.7% of them with no or mild symptoms, 0.3% required oxygen supplementation, 0.04% is in the ICU, 0.03% died.

The multi-ministry task force said earlier today that safe distancing will no longer be required when your wearing a mask.

The new rules will take on next week Friday (Feb 25).

Here is what Ong Ye Kung said:

So long as people are wearing masks there’s no need to cross out alternate seats in park benches, for example, or the urinal in the men’s toilet and the men will know sometimes they are cross out. Alternate ones are cross out… which is not necessary so long your wearing a mask

or people wear them out and they stand together and take a photo they don’t have to be a meter apart, you can please newspaper and magazines in common areas hair dryers in public showers so long as you maintain good hygiene 

so, I think all these little things don’t matter really don’t matter anymore we can do away with them our people know that we are in a crisis and we can start to remove these daily reminders that it’s not really material anymore.

Singapore is extending the list of VTL countries with a list of nations allowing more visitors to arrive with no quarantine as long as they are fully vaccinated and tested negative for COVID-19

Here is a quick summary

Qatar, Saudi and United Arab Emirate – no quarantine from 25 Feb 2022 (fly to Singapore)

Thailand – All cities can fly in without quarantine (soon) (fly to Singapore)

Israel and Philippines – March 3 (Two way)

Hongkong – Feb 25 (two way) travellers going to Hong Kong via the VTL lane will require applications for quarantine free travel

From next Tuesday, VTL travellers arriving in Singapore can take ART test on arrival.

VTL travellers arriving in Singapore will not need to undergo a 7-day self ART testing.

The Multi-ministry task force said that this is the first step to reopening borders to all travellers

From the 25th of February, all sports activities in Singapore will be permitted to take place with up to 30 fully-vaccinated people in supervised sports facilities, as the city-state begins to relax its safe management measures (SMMs).

According to the Ministry of Health (MOH), no further testing will be required as long as all participants are properly vaccinated.

Individuals are strongly recommended to self-test prior to arriving at the sporting event and to stay home if they test positive or experience COVID-19 symptoms.

The current SMMs will apply both before and after the sport activity, as well as during rest times.

“There has been no compelling evidence showing that transient contact while playing sports leads to infections,” said MOH.

Easing will begin soon

It will remove particular size restrictions for activities performed outside of the house beginning March 4th, such as:

religious services

business gatherings

media conferences

burial memorial events

wedding receptions

mask-on workshops.

Zoning rules will likewise be eliminated since masks and vaccines will be the primary means of protection.

A man received the maximum fine for speeding for driving at 201km/h along East Coast Parkway (ECP)

34-year-old Allan Ong exceeded the legal speed limit of 90km/h by 111km/h. Meaning he was going twice the speed. The incident happened on 3 September 2020 when he was ferrying his drunk wife home.

Court documents did not indicate how he was caught, during investigations he lie to a public servant claiming that he did not know who drove the car.

Prosecutor sought maximum fine

The Police prosecutor for the case said: for such irresponsible driving at such a high speed” he should get the maximum punishment

When the judge question why is he driving at such a speed, he claimed that his wife was drunk. He said:  “Because I was rushing my wife home that day. She was drunk and she was trying to do something funny.”

He was fined $1,000 and banned from driving for 9 months.

He could have been jailed for speeding over 60km/h of the road speed limit.

A man who caught his wife cheating was so angry that he beat her to the ground and continuously hit her until she eventually stopped breathing.

25-year-old, Chinese National Cui Huan came to Singapore with his wife,28-year-old Liang Xueqiu in 2019 to work in the F&B industry at Neo Group.

They live separately and work in different apartments. In around 6 months after moving to Singapore, Cui Hui suspected his wife is having an affair with her colleague 28-year-old Wang Xilai.

He started stalking his wife hoping that he would catch her cheating at her home at 211 Boon lay Place.

He waited at a park in the area and finally spotted his wife later on at Boon Lay Shopping Centre, he confronted her and took her phone from her.

The phone was locked and he could not unlock it, he forced his wife by grabbing her and finally unlocked the phone. During the scuffle, Liang bite the shoulder of her husband in “retaliation”.

Cui finally found evidence of the affair and confronted her and the argument soon got into a bloody fight he push her to the ground and started punching her till she was unconscious and eventually stopped breathing.

In court Cui claims that his wife said: “I went to a hotel room to have sex with Xilai. What can you do about it?”

Cui was eventually jailed for 7 years and 7 strokes of the rotan for causing grievous hurt and thereby causing death.

Hiring a maid is often a benefit to offloading housework but sometimes it could be a liability. Just yesterday we reported a maid stealing $30,000 worth of luxury goods.

A maid took an elderly woman’s ATM and used draw money over 36 times yielding her $18,000 in stolen cash. 35-year-old Indonesian National Anastasia Paba was charged with theft and theft in dwelling.

She was employed back in November 2020 to take care of daily household chores and she had access to the elderly woman’s bedroom.

On multiple occasions, Paba would accompany the 79-year-old elderly woman to ATMs to withdraw cash and she took the opportunity to peep when the elderly woman was entering her ATM pin.

In a span of around 1 1month, she stole UOB card from the victim’s bag on the pretence of cleaning the house and draw 36 times from the woman’s bank account totalling $18,000.

Little did she know that the bank account was a joint account between the elderly woman and her daughter, the daughter confronted the maid and she admitted to the crime.

The maid ran away but she was soon arrested and was sentenced to jail for 25 weeks.

The stolen money was never recovered.

According to the Police media release, a 48-year-old man was arrested for his suspected involvement in a case of voyeurism.

The incident happened on 10 February 2022 at around 6.300PM, the police were called to a scene after a man was caught filming upskirt images and videos of a woman on the train travelling towards Pasir Panjang MRT Station.

Cameras

Just like the tool used to commit the crime, the same tool is used to solve the crime.

Through follow-up tracing and with the aid of images from CCTV cameras, officers from the Public Transport Security Command established the identity of the man and arrested him on the morning of 11 February 2022 within 12 hours of the crime.

Police investigations are ongoing.

Penalties

The offence of voyeurism under Section 377BB of the Penal Code 1871 carries an imprisonment term which may extend to two years, a fine, caning, or any combinations of such punishments.

The Police have zero tolerance towards sexual offenders who threaten the safety of the community and perpetrators will be dealt with sternly in accordance with the law.