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COVID-19: Singapore crosses 15,000 mark with 690 new cases; confirms 5 more clusters

Security personnel who are dressed in personal protective equipment at Changi Exhibition Centre, which has been repurposed into a community isolation facility during the COVID-19 outbreak, here on 24 April, 2020. (PHOTO: Reuters)
Security personnel who are dressed in personal protective equipment at Changi Exhibition Centre, which has been repurposed into a community isolation facility during the COVID-19 outbreak, here on 24 April, 2020. (PHOTO: Reuters)

SINGAPORE — The Ministry of Health (MOH) on Wednesday (29 April) confirmed 690 new COVID-19 cases and five more clusters in Singapore, bringing the total to 15,641 – the highest recorded in Southeast Asia.

This comes more than a week after it confirmed a single-day high of 1,426 new cases.

Of the new cases, 660, or about 96 per cent, are foreign workers living in dormitories.

Most of them have a mild illness and are being monitored in the community isolation facilities or general ward of our hospitals, said the MOH, adding that none of them are in the intensive care unit.

Of the remaining cases, 19 are foreign workers residing outside dorms while 11 are cases in the community, including six Singaporeans and permanent residents.

Overall, 37 per cent of the new cases have no established links.

One of the new cases is a 23-year-old Malaysian woman who is employed as a nurse at the National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID).

The woman, identified as case 15237, had no recent travel history to affected countries or regions. The nurse reported developing symptoms on 23 April and tested positive for the virus on Wednesday.

She is currently warded at the NCID. Prior to her hospital admission, she had mostly been on medical leave and only gone to work for a few hours.

The MOH said that the number of new cases in the community has decreased, from an average of 25 cases per day in the week before, to an average of 17 per day in the past week.

The number of unlinked cases in the community has also decreased, from an average of 17 cases per day in the week before, to an average of nine per day in the past week, it added.

“We will continue to closely monitor these numbers, as well as the cases detected through our surveillance programme.”

Separately, the number of new cases amongst foreign workers residing outside dorms has also decreased, from an average of 29 cases per day in the week before, to an average of 18 per day in the past week, the ministry said.

The five additional clusters are linked to 11 Defu Lane 1, 106 International Road, 33 Senoko Way, 17 Shaw Road (Shaw House Dormitory), and 82 Woodlands Industrial Park E5.

More than 50 clusters linked to foreign worker dormitories have been identified thus far, including Singapore’s largest cluster of 2,436 cases linked to S11 Dormitory@Punggol, followed by Sungei Tengah Lodge linked to 919 cases and Tuas View Dormitory linked to 906 cases.

The three are among the 25 dorms that have been gazetted as isolation areas and account for around 32 per cent of the total 13,353 infected cases across the dorms.

Some 300,000 foreign workers live in dorms here in Singapore.

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

62 more recovered, 22 in ICU

The ministry said on Tuesday that 62 more cases have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities. In all, 1,188 have fully recovered from the infection.

Most of the 1,714 hospitalised cases are stable or improving while 22 are in critical condition in the intensive care unit, up from 21 on Tuesday.

A total of 12,725 patients who exhibit mild symptoms or are clinically well but still test positive for the virus, are isolated and cared for at community facilities.

A total of 14 people have died from complications of the virus here, including two Singaporean men, aged 81 and 82, who succumbed to COVID-19 on Sunday.

Four patients who tested positive for the virus have died from causes unrelated to COVID-19.

The latest fatalities include a 40-year-old Malaysian man who died of a heart attack on 18 April and a 46-year-old Indian national whose fatal injuries were linked to a fall from height after being found at a staircase landing in Khoo Teck Puat Hospital last week. Both had tested positive for COVID-19 prior to their deaths.

As of 27 April, the ministry has conducted 143,919 swab tests, of which 99,929 were done on unique individuals.

Over 3.16m cases globally

To date, there are over 3.16 million COVID-19 cases globally – it took 83 days to reach the first million cases worldwide and just 14 days for the second million.

Some 219,000 have died from the virus, with the US holding the record for the highest global death toll at close to 51,000.

At over 1 million cases, the country also holds the record of having the largest number of patients globally, followed by Spain at over 236,000 cases, Italy at over 201,000, and France with over 165,000 cases.

China, where the virus originated, has reported almost 83,000 cases and more than 4,600 deaths, after it abruptly readjusted its death toll higher by 50 per cent on 17 April.

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