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COVID-19: Singapore confirms new daily high of 1,164 recoveries; 752 more cases

People wearing protective masks shop in a store selling TCM products here on 12 May, 2020. (PHOTO: Getty Images)
People wearing protective masks shop in a store selling TCM products here on 12 May, 2020. (PHOTO: Getty Images)

SINGAPORE — The Ministry of Health (MOH) on Thursday (14 May) confirmed a new daily high of 1,164 COVID-19 recoveries and 752 more COVID-19 cases in Singapore.

The city-state now has a total of 26,098 cases, of which 23,758 – or 91 per cent – are foreign workers living in dormitories.

The ministry also confirmed one additional cluster linked to 2 Perumal Road.

Of the 752 new cases, 750 are foreign workers living in dorms, said the ministry, while one is a 76-year-old Singaporean man linked to a cluster at 63 Senoko Drive and the other a 43-year-old male permanent resident linked to a cluster at TTJ Design & Engineering.

For the second day in a row, there are no cases involving foreign workers residing outside of dorms. Overall, only one per cent of the new cases have no established links.

The MOH noted that the number of new cases in the community has decreased from an average of eight per day in the week before, to an average of five per day in the past week.

The number of unlinked cases in the community has also decreased from an average of three cases per day in the week before, to an average of two per day in the past week, it added.

Similarly, new cases amongst foreign workers residing outside dorms has decreased from an average of six cases per day in the week before, to an average of three per day in the past week.

Dozens of clusters linked to foreign worker dorms have been identified thus far, including Singapore’s largest cluster of 2,562 cases linked to S11 Dormitory@Punggol, followed by Sungei Tengah Lodge linked to 1,614 cases and Tuas View Dormitory linked to 1,257 cases.

The three are among the 25 dorms that have been gazetted as isolation areas. Some 400,000 foreign workers live in dorms here in Singapore.

Some 20,000 infected foreign workers are expected to be discharged by end-May, said National Development Minister Lawrence Wong at a press conference on Tuesday.

As of the press conference, 1,735 such workers have recovered and have been discharged.

(For more details on the clusters, read here.)

Over 5,900 patients discharged in total

With the single-day high of 1,164 patients discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities, a total of 5,973 cases here have fully recovered from the infection, said the ministry on Thursday.

Most of the 1,072 hospitalised cases are stable or improving, while 20 are in critical condition in the intensive care unit, up from 19 on Wednesday.

A total of 19,032 patients who have mild symptoms or are clinically well but still test positive for the virus are isolated and cared for at community facilities.

Apart from 21 who have passed away due to COVID-19 complications, nine patients who tested positive for the virus have died from unrelated causes, including three whose deaths were attributed to a heart attack.

“Only cases where the attending doctor or pathologist attributes the primary or underlying cause of death as due to COVID-19 infection will be added to the COVID-19 death count,” said the MOH in previous press releases, adding that the method of assessment is consistent with international practices for classifying deaths.

It had also noted that 86 male foreign workers aged 25 to 59 died due to heart disease in Singapore in 2018.

As of 10 May, the minstry has conducted 224,262 swab tests, of which 216,102 were done on unique individuals.

This translates to around 39,300 swabs conducted per 1 million total population, and about 37,900 unique individuals swabbed per 1 million total population.

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