310 new Covid-19 cases in Singapore, including 7 in the community; 3 new clusters identified
SINGAPORE — Singapore has confirmed 310 new cases of Covid-19, including seven that are in the community, six that are imported and 297 who are migrant workers staying in dormitories.
In a press release on Wednesday (July 22), the Ministry of Health (MOH) said that the six imported cases include two Singaporeans, one permanent resident and three work pass holders.
The three work pass holders had arrived from the Philippines on July 8 and 10, the permanent resident came back from Kazakhstan on July 10 and the two Singaporeans returned from India on July 12.
They had all tested positive for the coronavirus while serving their 14-day stay-home notices.
For the seven cases in the community, three are Singaporeans, three are work pass holders and the other is a work permit holder.
Two of these community cases are linked to previous cases or clusters while the remaining five have no links.
MOH said that investigations are ongoing for the cases with no known sources of infection.
“In the meantime, all the identified close contacts of the cases have been isolated and placed on quarantine, and will be tested at the start and end of their quarantine period so that we can detect asymptomatic cases,” it said.
“We will also conduct serological tests for their household contacts to determine if these cases could have been infected by them.”
A serological test is used to check if a person had an infection in the past, or on someone who is asymptomatic or has a very low viral load.
Overall, the number of new cases in the community has gone down from an average of 13 a day in the week before, to an average of nine a day in the past week.
The number of unlinked cases in the community has also gone down from an average of eight a day in the week before, to an average of five a day in the past week.
“We will continue to closely monitor these numbers, as well as the cases detected through our surveillance programme,” MOH said.
THREE CLUSTERS FOUND
MOH also said it has identified three new clusters of infections at dormitories here. They are located at 7 Kian Teck Crescent, 2 Tech Park Crescent and 12 Tech Park Crescent.
At the same time, the inter-agency task force handling the infection controls at foreign worker dormitories has been “systematically and progressively clearing dormitories through aggressive testing of migrant workers residing in dormitories”, it added.
As a result, six dormitories have been cleared of the disease and now house only recovered individuals and those who have recently tested negative for coronavirus. They are no longer classified as clusters.
The dormitories are:
• Cochrane Lodge II at 49 Admiralty Road West
• Hulett Dormitory at 20 Senoko Drive
• Shaw Lodge at 12 Shaw Road
• Tampines Dormitory at 2 Tampines Place
• 31 Sungei Kadut Avenue
• 230 Woodlands Industrial Park E5
UPDATES ON THE REMAINING CASES
In all, the total number of infections in Singapore now stands at 48,744.
Of these, 44,795 people have fully recovered and have been discharged from hospitals or community care facilities, including the 211 on Wednesday.
There are still 150 patients in hospitals and most are in stable condition or improving. No one is in critical condition under intensive care.
Another 3,772 patients are isolated and cared for at community facilities. These are those who have mild symptoms or are clinically well but still test positive for Covid-19.
Twenty-seven people have died from complications due to Covid-19.
