There might not be a Patient 31 in Singapore, but there’s a chance that the private dinner function in SAFRA Jurong might become a cluster that’ll go down to history as one that started a community spread of COVID-19 in Singapore.
Though, maybe, people in the future might be treating COVID-19 as yet another seasonal flu like H1N1, but let’s leave that for another article (or you can read this article to know more).
The reason?
The private dinner function involves a whopping 200 people—and they could have also interacted with people from another event next door, which has about 400 people.
Yes, all in all, we’re talking about 600 people.
Now you know why so many CCs and RCs have suspended their singing lessons, eh?
So, what’s this event about?
黄金年华 in a Ballroom
You’d know by now that the private dinner function isn’t just a group of people having their reunion dinner in a private room.
Instead, it’s a rather major event.
According to The Straits Times, it’s a Chinese New Year celebration attended by members of a Hokkien singing group.
Unless I’ve been living in an alternate universe, it should’ve looked like a set from 黄金年华—the place should be filled with people who don’t know what TikTok is and use Facebook regularly to create Good Morning messages.
According to the emcee, there were about 200 people at the dinner, and it was “very lively, very happy”.
And what’s 黄金年华 without some singing and performance?
The night comprises a dinner, a lohei segment and song-and-dance performances.
Nothing’s wrong with that: these people who built our country deserve every bit of entertainment they have.
Unfortunately, of course, COVID-19 was there to dampen the spirits.
Held in Joy Garden Restaurant’s ballroom, it’s like a hotel-style ballroom that can take 120 tables.
Reader Bao: I still cannot visualise how the event is like
If you still can’t imagine how it looks like because you don’t even know what 黄金年华 is, then just think of those wedding dinners you’ve been to.
It’s almost the same…except that there was another event next door, too.
Another Ballroom, Another 黄金年华
On the same night, another celebration was ongoing. This time, it’s organized by a Hokkien and Cantonese singing coach, and it’s estimated that there could be 400 people there.
And I think you’d know by now that boomers don’t just DMs each other when they see their fellow friends—they apparently interacted with each other physically and talk about their kids for hours.
The emcee said, “I am quite sure there were interactions between the guests at both events because they are from the same dialect singing community…Many of the guests were students of both of these teachers, so some of them would have been friends and would have met up to catch up or take photographs.”
Aunties and uncles are usually very adorable when they interact with their friends in their dialects, but this could be deadly.
According to Shin Min Daily News, the organizer of the first Hokkien singing group was allegedly one of the patients who was tested positive. All in all, as of today, 21 people linked to the dinner have been tested positive.
Associate Professor Kenneth Mak, director of medical services at the Ministry of Health, has mentioned earlier that the patients who were tested positive didn’t just sit on their table; they mingled around.
They then went on with life despite having respiratory symptoms, which led to infections that were announced just recently.
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But how did the virus got there in the first place?
Speculations by Hardwarezone Forum Users Wrong
Earlier today, netizens from Hardwarezone dug out some information that would make any conspiracy theorists write a scholarly paper.
They found an event page on the Grace Assembly of God website showing that they had a dinner on 8 February 2020, a week before this event.
Grace Assembly of God Church is one of the local COVID-19 clusters.
With a sudden closure of the restaurant between 16 February to 19 February, they came to a theory: the place might have been contaminated by the churchgoers.
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However, this theory was proven wrong when the church told The Straits Times that the function hadn’t gone on as they had cancelled it when the Dorson alert was raised to orange.
And the thread in Hardwarezone has either been removed or set to private.
In other words, we still don’t know who brought the virus to the 黄金年华 event.
If you’re a youngster who need to educate your boomers about this virus, you might want to show them these videos:
Hokkien:
Cantonese:
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Hokkien and Teochew:
Malay:
Tamil
