40 new COVID-19 cases and one dorm cluster; 250 visitors to SLR Revolution tested negative

SINGAPORE — The Ministry of Health (MOH) confirmed 40 new COVID-19 cases as of Friday (4 September), bringing the country’s total to 56,948.

The ministry also announced an additional cluster of 33 cases linked to Blue Stars Dormitory at 3 Kian Teck Lane.

All but one of the 40 new cases are asymptomatic and were proactively detected, it added. There are zero new cases in the community and three imported cases, including one Singaporean and one permanent resident.

The 37 remaining cases are foreign workers living in dormitories, of which five had been identified earlier as contacts of previous cases, and had already been quarantined. Overall, seven per cent of the new cases have no established links.

Amongst the three imported cases, two are Singapore residents who returned here from India on 28 and 23 August. The third case is a short-term visit pass holder who arrived from India on 26 August and was allowed entry into Singapore as his spouse has been seeking medical treatment here.

All of them had been placed on the 14-day stay-home notice upon arrival here, and had been tested while serving their notice at dedicated facilities, the MOH said.

The ministry noted that the number of new cases in the community has increased, from an average of two cases per day in the week before, to an average of three per day in the past week.

Similarly, the number of unlinked cases in the community has also increased, from an average of one case per day in the week before, to an average of two per day in the past week.

32 cases in dorms detected via surveillance testing

Amongst the 37 cases residing in dorms, five had been identified earlier as contacts of previous cases were tested during quarantine to determine their status, said the MOH.

The remaining 32 cases were detected through surveillance testing.

Besides the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test, or swabbing, serological tests were also conducted to determine if some of these cases are current or past infections. “The serological test results for 16 cases have come back positive so far, which indicate likely past infections,” said the ministry.

Overall, workers living in dorms make up 94.5 per cent – or 53,799 cases – of Singapore’s total COVID-19 tally.

To date, some 16,000 workers who need to undergo rostered routine testing have yet to be scheduled by their employers, said the ministry of Manpower (MOM), Economic Development Board (EDB), Building and Construction Authority (BCA), and Health Promotion Board (HPB) in a separate joint release issued earlier on Friday.

Workers staying in dorms, in the construction, marine and process sectors as well as personnel who go into the worksites are required to undergo rostered testing every 14 days.

If employers do not meet the deadline, affected workers will not be able to return to work. Unresponsive employers who have persistently failed to schedule workers for the rostered routing training may have their work pass privileges curtailed, the authorities added.

250 visitors to SLR Revolution tested negative; 4 yet to be swabbed

Separately, the MOH said it has contacted 254 individuals who had visited SLR Revolution at Excelsior Shopping Centre between 15 and 18 August, and facilitated COVID-19 testing for them.

“This is a precautionary measure following the detection of three cases – 56184, 56626 and 56826 – who had worked at or visited the shop, even though the risk of infection for visitors is assessed to be low,” it said.

Results for 250 individuals have come back negative for COVID-19, the MOH added. Four more people have yet to be swabbed and the ministry is facilitating testing for them.

Over 98% of total discharged

With 146 more patients discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities on Friday, 56,174 cases – or 98.6 per cent of the total – have fully recovered from the infection.

Most of the 51 hospitalised cases are stable or improving, while none is in critical condition in the intensive care unit.

A total of 696 patients with mild symptoms or are clinically well but still test positive are isolated and cared for at community facilities.

Apart from 27 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.

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