No Singapore residents among 214 new COVID-19 infections; 3 community cases all Bangladeshi men

SINGAPORE — In its lowest daily reported tally in over two months, the Ministry of Health (MOH) confirmed on Monday (15 June) 214 new COVID-19 cases in Singapore, bringing the total number of cases to 40,818, as well as 777 recoveries.

There are no Singaporeans or permanent residents among the new cases, a first since last Tuesday. The latest tally is the lowest since the 191 cases reported on 11 April.

Of them, 211 are foreign workers living in dormitories, while three others are classified as community cases.

The trio, all men, are Bangladeshi nationals aged between 28 to 48.

“All three cases in the community are work permit holders who were detected as a result of our efforts to screen workers in essential services, even though they are asymptomatic,” said the MOH.

Overall, only one per cent of new cases have no established links.

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

Similarly, the number of unlinked cases in the community has also decreased from an average of four cases per day in the week before, to an average of three per day in the past week.

The ministry provided an update on the 15-year-old St Anthony’s Canossian Secondary School female student who was among two Singaporeans announced on Saturday to have tested positive for COVID-19. Her serological test result had came back positive, which is indicative of a past infection.

As a precaution, 47 students and 12 staff members who had been in close contact with the Singaporean teenager have been placed on leave of absence by the Ministry of Education (MOE) or home quarantine order by MOH. They have been tested for COVID-19, and their test results have all come back negative.

Separately, the ministry noted that the Inter-Agency Task Force has been systematically and progressively clearing dormitories through aggressive testing of migrant workers residing in dormitories, with Westlite Juniper at 23 Mandai Estate and the dorm at 21 Defu South Street 1 now cleared.

These dorms now only house recovered individuals and those who have recently tested negative. Both clusters are now considered closed, the ministry added.

It also announced one additional cluster of eight cases linked to a dorm at 23 Tech Park Crescent.

Dozens of clusters linked to foreign worker dorms have been identified thus far, including Singapore’s largest cluster of 2,758 cases linked to S11 Dormitory@Punggol, followed by Sungei Tengah Lodge with 2,041 cases, Jurong Penjuru Dormitory with 1,711 cases, Cassia @ Penjuru with 1,456 cases, and Tuas View Dormitory with 1,405 cases.

The five are among the 25 dorms that have been gazetted as isolation areas and account for some 24 per cent of the total 38,438 infected foreign workers living in dorms in Singapore.

About 10 per cent of some 400,000 such workers who live in dorms here have been cleared of the infection, said Manpower Minister Josephine Teo on 1 June during a press conference. Over 20,000 infected foreign workers have recovered, she added.

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

Over 30,300 have recovered

With 777 more patients discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities on Monday, 30,366 cases – some 74 per cent of the total tally – have fully recovered from the infection.

Most of the 243 hospitalised cases are stable or improving, while two are in critical condition in the intensive care unit.

A total of 10,183 patients with mild symptoms or are clinically well but still test positive are isolated and cared for at community facilities.

Apart from 26 patients who have died from COVID-19 complications, 10 others who tested positive for the virus have died from unrelated causes, including three whose deaths were attributed to a heart attack and another three, including the 44-year-old male Indian national who died on 8 June, whose deaths were attributed to coronary heart disease.

“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.

As of 8 June, the ministry has conducted 488,695 swab tests, of which 284,963 were done on unique individuals. This translates to around 85,700 swabs conducted per 1 million total population, and about 50,000 unique individuals swabbed per 1 million total population.

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