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Bukit Merah View market cluster grows to 65 cases; Changi Airport T3 cluster closed

Cordoned off tables seen at the People’s Park Food Centre on 24 May 2021 amid Singapore’s Phase 2 (Heightened Alert) period. (PHOTO: Dhany Osman / Yahoo News Singapore)
Cordoned off tables seen at the People’s Park Food Centre on 24 May 2021 (PHOTO: Dhany Osman / Yahoo News Singapore)

SINGAPORE — The Ministry of Health (MOH) on Friday (18 June) confirmed 16 new COVID-19 cases in Singapore, taking the country's total case count to 62,382.

Fourteen of them are local cases in the community. Of them, nine – out of 10 linked cases – are linked to the 115 Bukit Merah View market and food centre cluster, which now has 65 infections.

The remaining two are imported and are both Singaporeans who returned from Indonesia.

Friday marks the 54th consecutive day with local cases reported. "Amongst the new cases today, four are asymptomatic, and were detected from our proactive screening and surveillance, while 12 were symptomatic," said the MOH.

The four unlinked community cases are:

  • a 69-year-old male China national who is a retiree and a resident at NTUC Health Senior Group Home at Bukit Merah View (fully vaccinated)

  • a 67-year-old Singaporean man who is a retiree (fully vaccinated)

  • a 51-year-old Singaporean woman who is a homemaker and Bukit Merah View resident (fully vaccinated)

  • an 83-year-old Singaporean woman who is a retiree

The MOH identified a new "Case 64183" cluster, linked to three cases including a 59-year-old Singaporean woman who is a retiree and was announced on Friday.

It also announced the closure of three clusters – including Singapore's biggest cluster of 108 cases to date at Changi Airport Terminal 3 – as there have been no cases linked to them for the past two incubation periods, or 28 days. The two other clusters are "Case 63376" and "Case 63479".

Singapore currently has 39 active COVID-19 clusters.

The ministry noted that the number of new cases in the community has increased from 36 cases in the week before to 104 cases in the past week. The number of unlinked cases in the community has also increased from nine cases in the week before to 19 cases in the past week.

Bukit Merah View market cluster: 9 new cases, 65 in total

The cluster was first linked to a 74-year-old Singaporean man who works at a sundry store at the market. The fully-vaccinated man was confirmed to have COVID-19 on 9 June.

Most of the nine new cases – aged between four and 83 – are family members or household contacts, or both, of infections in the cluster. Of them, four had been quarantined earlier:

  • a 5-year-old Singaporean boy who is a student at PCF Sparkletots Preschool at 78A Telok Blangah Street 32

  • a 4-year-old Singaporean girl who is a student at the same PCF Sparkletots Preschool

  • a 39-year-old Singaporean man who works as a logistics officer at CKD Singapore

  • a 69-year-old Singaporean man who is a retiree (fully vaccinated)

Five cases were detected via surveillance testing:

  • an 83-year-old Singaporean man who is a retiree and Bukit Merah View resident who had visited the market

  • a 35-year-old female China national who works as a cashier at Bake King

  • a 72-year-old Singaporean man who is a retiree and frequent visitor of the market (fully vaccinated)

  • a 64-year-old Singaporean man who is employed by KAL Transport as a school bus driver for Tanglin Trust School (fully vaccinated)

  • a 42-year-old Burmese woman who is a foreign domestic worker and had visited the market

On Friday, the multi-ministry taskforce on COVID-19 announced further adjustments in safe management measures during the ongoing Phase 3 (Heightened Alert). Among them, dining-in at food and beverage establishments will still resume from next Monday but only in groups of two, and individuals who have visited hotspots on the same days as infected COVID-19 cases will have to undergo mandatory testing at designated testing centres.

99% of total cases have recovered, 1 in ICU

With 27 more patients discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities on Friday, 61,987 cases – or 99.4 per cent of the total – have fully recovered from the infection.

Most of the 152 hospitalised cases are stable or improving, while one of them is in critical condition in the intensive care unit.

A total of 209 patients – with mild symptoms or are clinically well but still test positive – are isolated and cared for at community facilities.

Apart from the 34 patients who have died from COVID-19 complications, 15 others who tested positive for the virus were determined to have died from unrelated causes, including three whose deaths were attributed to a heart attack and another four, whose deaths were attributed to coronary heart disease.

Among the 137 confirmed cases reported from 12 to 18 June, 50 cases have tested positive for their serology tests, 76 have tested negative, and 11 serology test results are pending.

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