KUALA LUMPUR, April 20 – Singapore reported today a jump of 1,426 new Covid-19 infections, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 8,014.
The new cases are mostly migrant workers living in foreign worker dormitories, Channel News Asia reported Singapore’s Ministry of Health (MOH) as saying.
The island republic recorded 596 new coronavirus cases yesterday, also mostly involving work permit holders residing in dormitories.
“The main increase today continues to be for work permit holders residing in dormitories, in line with our continued efforts to actively test and isolate the infected workers,” MOH said yesterday, according to CNA.
“Most of these cases are young, have a mild illness and are being monitored in the community isolation facilities or general ward of our hospitals. None of them is in the intensive care unit.”
The ministry has gazetted five more dormitories as isolation areas to stop the disease from spreading further. The dormitories are: Avery Lodge, Cassia @ Penjuru, Westlite Mandai Dormitory, PPT Lodge 1A, and Jurong Penjuru Dormitory 1.
This brings the number of isolated foreign workers dormitories to 18.
Apart from that, the government, via Temasek Foundation, has also started the initiative to provide 400,000 migrant workers and 250,000 domestic helpers with face masks.
“Given recent clusters of outbreaks of Covid-19, it is important to provide our migrant workers with additional mask supplies for their protection,” CNA cited the foundation as saying.
The distribution includes 1.3 million reusable cloth masks that have a filter pocket and 650,000 surgical masks. The initiative is run by Senior Minister of State for Culture, Community and Youth, Sim Ann.
Separately, 68 per cent of the new cases yesterday were linked to known clusters, whereas the rest were pending contact tracing.
A total of 30 cases were reported within the community, comprising 25 Singapore citizens or Permanent Residents, and five work pass holders.
Among the community cases, five were children aged between one and 12 years.
As at Sunday, 26 patients were allowed to be discharged, bringing the total number of recovered patients to 768.
“Of the 2,921 confirmed cases who are still in hospital, most are stable or improving, and 22 are in critical condition in the intensive care unit,” said CNA yesterday.
A total of 2,888 cases who test positive but are healthy have been isolated and cared for at community facilities. Eleven deaths have been recorded in Singapore due to Covid-19.
The country has been on a circuit-breaker period to curb the spread of the coronavirus since April 7.
