30-year-old Fabian Amos Gilbert pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 1 month and 2 weeks in jail on 20 March for an offence under the Infectious Diseases Act, he had escaped from his isolation while he was Covid positive to go out to the park and the beach back in 2020, according to The Straits Times.
After arriving in Singapore from London on 18 March 2020, Fabian experienced a sore throat, fever and runny nose and went to Khoo Teck Puat Hospital for a swab test, where he was found to be positive the next day.
He was then admitted and later issued with an isolation order to be detained and isolated inside a room at D’Resort for a month.
Fabian shared a room with another 24-year-old man who was also positive and continued to test positive for the virus on 16 April 2020.
In the wee hours of 18 April, he couldn’t sleep and decided to escape from the isolation without permission, breaching his isolation order.
He was seen in CCTV images leaving his room at about 2.55 am and walking to a fence that segregated D’Resort from Pasir Ris Park, before stepping on a fire hydrant and climbing over a fence.
He was later confronted by his roommate about it and reportedly told him that he had been escaping the law since 1993.
The beach as Pasir Ris was closed at the time to the public but the park was still open, and the incident took place 11 days after a circuit breaker was imposed in Singapore and 8 months before vaccines were made available.
District Judge Prem Raj said that the man’s offences took place during a time when there wasn’t much known about the virus, making it a potentially fatal threat.
He had been offered a bail of $5,000 and is set to start serving his jail sentence on 29 March next week.