27 of 41 new COVID cases in Singapore community infections

SINGAPORE — The Ministry of Health (MOH) has confirmed 41 new COVID-19 cases in Singapore on Thursday (20 May), taking the country's total case count to 61,730.

Of them, 27 are local transmissions in the community, of whom 21 are linked to previous cases. Among them, 15 had already been quarantined earlier.

Thursday marks the 25th consecutive day with local cases reported.

Fourteen remaining cases are imported. "Amongst the new cases today, 22 are asymptomatic, and were detected from our proactive screening and surveillance, while 19 were symptomatic," said the MOH.

Authorities also confirmed the 32nd COVID-19 fatality, a 70-year-old Singaporean man who is linked to the Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH) cluster. It also announced that residents at Block 506 Hougang Avenue 8 will need to be tested for the virus after "a few" infected cases were confirmed to be staying in the block.

The six unlinked community cases, aged 19 to 69, are:

• a 54-year-old Malaysian woman who works at Seagate Singapore International Headquarters (fully vaccinated)

• a 59-year-old Singaporean woman who works at Mary Fashion and Trading at 338 Ang Mo Kio Avenue 1 (fully vaccinated)

• a 69-year-old Singaporean man who works as a cleaner employed by Weishen Industrial Services (fully vaccinated)

• a 49-year-old female PR who is a homemaker

• a 41-year-old Singaporean man who works as a customer service personnel at Times Bookstore

• a 19-year-old Malaysian woman who is a Singapore Polytechnic student

Separately, there are five cases linked to previous infections, including a 15-year-old female PR – a Yuan Ching Secondary School student – who is a family member and household contact of the 49-year-old PR.

Another is a 38-year-old Singaporean woman who works at Pacific Law Corporation and a workplace contact of a previously reported case.

Three of these cases had been quarantined earlier and are household contacts of previously reported infections. They are a 39-year-old Malaysian man who works as an electrician at Yew Hock Automation Service & Control, a 12-year-old Singaporean boy who is an Anglo-Chinese School (Junior) student, and a 32-year-old Filipino woman who is a foreign domestic worker.

The ministry noted that the number of new cases in the community has increased from 71 in the week before to 190 in the past week. The number of unlinked cases in the community has also increased from 11 in the week before to 52 in the past week.

Several new places have also been added to the list of public venues visited by infectious community cases, including Kong Meng San Phor Kark See Monastery, Sun Plaza, a Saizeriya outlet at Woods Square, and Cash Converters at Block 710A Ang Mo Kio Avenue 8.

Changi Airport cluster: 4 new cases + 1 previous case linked; 100 in total

The Changi Airport cluster, or the "Case 62873" cluster, is now linked to 100 cases and the largest of 24 active clusters in Singapore. At least 22 cases in the cluster have tested preliminarily positive for the India variant, or B.1.617.

The cluster is named after an 88-year-old Singaporean man who is employed by Ramky Cleantech Services as a cleaner deployed at Changi Airport Terminal 3. The fully-vaccinated man was confirmed to have COVID-19 on 5 May.

Thursday's four new cases, aged between eight and 63, have been quarantined and only one of them works at Changi Airport. All of them are family members and household contacts of cases in the cluster:

• a 63-year-old Singaporean man employed by Certis Cisco as an aviation security officer at T3 (fully vaccinated)

• a 43-year-old Singaporean woman who works as an administrative personnel at Glory Ship Management

• a 14-year-old Singaporean girl who is a Madrasah Al- Ma’arif Al-Islamia student

• an 8-year-old Singaporean girl who is a Madrasah Al- Ma’arif Al-Islamiah student

Learning Point cluster: 1 new case; 28 in total

The "Case 63131" cluster is named after the case number of a 50-year-old Singaporean woman who works as a tutor at Learning Point at Parkway Centre and was confirmed to have COVID-19 on 12 May.

The sole new case linked to the cluster on Thursday has been quarantined earlier. She is a 38-year-old Singaporean woman who works as a legal service officer at Legal Service Commission. The fully vaccinated woman is a family member and household contact of a case in the cluster.

Changi Prison Complex cluster: 1 new case; 8 in total

The cluster at the prison was first linked to a 39-year-old male China national who is employed by SATS Food Services as a chef at its complex. The fully-vaccinated man was confirmed to have COVID-19 on 13 May.

The latest addition, a 41-year-old Singaporean man who is an inmate there, brings the total number of inmates in the cluster to five.

Jin Tai Tong Food Industries cluster: 3 new cases, 8 in total

One of five new clusters announced on Wednesday, it was first linked to a 55-year-old Singaporean man who works as a warehouse assistant at Jin Tai Mart and was confirmed to have COVID-19 on 15 May.

Two of the new cases linked to the cluster work at Jin Tai Mart while one work at Jin Tai Tong Warehouse:

• a 32-year-old male China national who works as a warehouse assistant at Jin Tai Tong Warehouse (quarantined earlier)

• a 53-year-old Singaporean woman who is a packing assistant at Jin Tai Mart (received first dose of vaccine)

• a 40-year-old male China national who works as a store assistant at Jin Tai Mart

Sms Infocomm cluster, 1 new case, 4 in total

The first case linked to the cluster, one of five new ones announced on Wednesday, is a 54-year-old Malaysian woman who works at Sms Infocomm (Singapore) and was confirmed to have COVID-19 on 15 May. She had tested preliminarily positive for the India variant, or B.1.617, and is pending further confirmatory tests.

All four cases linked to the cluster work at the company, including the latest to be added to the cluster on Thursday: a 49-year-old Singaporean woman who works as a factory operator there.

'Case 63357' cluster: 6 new cases, 9 in total

The cluster is named after the case number of a 32-year-old Singaporean man who works as an IT engineer at AbbVie Operations Singapore and was confirmed to have COVID-19 on 16 May.

Five of them, aged between three and 60, had been quarantined earlier and were identified as the man's close contacts:

• a 32-year-old Singaporean woman who works as a clinic assistant at Etern Medical Clinic (Punggol MRT) (fully vaccinated)

• a 33-year-old Singaporean man who works as a technician at PSA Singapore (Tanjong Pagar Terminal) (fully vaccinated)

• a 3-year-old Singaporean girl who is a student at Skool4kidz Centre at Punggol Way

• a 60-year-old Singaporean woman employed by Jonguil Asia Cleaning and deployed as a cleaner at The Cascadia

• a 59-year-old Singaporean man employed by White Guard Security as a security officer

The sixth case is a family member of the 32-year-old man: a 36-year-old female PR who works as a service staff member at KFC at Jalan Mas Puteh.

14 imported cases, including six-year-old boy

Of them, seven are Singaporeans – including two boys aged six and eight – and three are PRs who returned from India and Indonesia.

Two of them are dependant’s pass holders who arrived from Germany and Sri Lanka.

The remaining two are work pass holders who arrived from Nepal and the Philippines.

All of them were placed on the stay-home notice upon their arrival here and were tested while serving their notice.

The arrivals from the Indian sub-continent had already come into Singapore before the restrictions on travel were imposed, said the MOH.

99% of total cases have recovered, 4 in ICU

With 46 more patients discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities on Thursday, 61,229 cases – or 99.2 per cent of the total – have fully recovered from the infection.

Most of the 240 hospitalised cases are stable or improving, while four of them are in critical condition in the intensive care unit.

A total of 229 patients – with mild symptoms or are clinically well but still test positive – are isolated and cared for at community facilities.

Apart from the 32 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 277 confirmed cases reported from 14 to 20 May, 63 cases have tested positive for their serology tests, 150 have tested negative, and 64 serology test results are pending.

Read more about Singapore's Phase 2 (Heightened Alert) restrictions here.

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