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SINGAPORE – The Ministry of Health (MINSA) confirmed nine new COVID-19 cases in Singapore as of Friday (October 16), bringing the country’s total cases to 57,891.
All but two of the nine new cases are asymptomatic and were proactively detected, the Health Ministry said.
Of these, one is a case that resides in a dormitory of foreign workers and was detected through routine tests of workers living there every two weeks.
The remaining eight cases are imported, including two Singaporeans who returned from the Philippines. Four are work permit holders currently working here from Indonesia, the Philippines and Myanmar.
The six imported cases were placed on the stay-at-home notice upon arrival here and tested while the notice was being delivered.
The remaining two imported cases are holders of short-term visiting passes, the Health Ministry said.
One of them was allowed to enter Singapore from India as he was already receiving medical care here and had returned for further treatment, he added.
The man was taken directly to a hospital and isolated upon arrival here and was subsequently examined.
The other is a member of the crew of a ship that arrived from Indonesia, the Health Ministry said. The man had not disembarked from the ship and was cleaned on board after developing symptoms. He remained on the ship until his test result came back positive for COVID-19 and was then transferred to a hospital, the ministry added.
MINSA noted that the number of new cases in the community has remained stable at an average of less than one case per day in the last two weeks.
He added that the number of unrelated cases in the community has dropped from an average of less than one case per day in the previous week to none in the last week.
Overall, 11% of new cases have no established links.
The ministry also announced the closure of the cluster at the Jovell construction site, located at 27 Flora Drive, as there are no cases linked to it during the last two incubation periods or 28 days.
More than 450,000 contact tracing devices will be distributed to all migrant and local workers living or working in dormitories, as well as the construction, marine shipyard and process sectors, said the Ministry of Manpower, the Building and Construction Authority. Construction and the Economic Development Board. in a separate joint press release on Friday.
The distribution of the devices will take place in phases starting Sunday and is expected to end in early November.
These devices, or BluePass tokens, are designed specifically for the bedroom and workplace environment, authorities said.
“They are compact and waterproof, and can be used at all times. They will be interoperable and will complement the use of the TraceTogether application on migrant workers’ smartphones, as some workers may not always carry their phones to work and in bedrooms, ”they added.
Authorities also announced the suspension of two employers’ job pass privileges for failing to arrange for their workers to undergo routine roster testing.
So far, the vast majority of some 260,000 workers have undergone or are scheduled for routine tests, while some 2,200 workers who must undergo them have not yet done so.
99% of all cases have recovered; none in ICU
With 20 more patients discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities on Friday, 57,784 cases, or 99.8 percent of the total, have fully recovered from the infection.
Most of the 30 hospitalized cases are stable or improving, while none are in critical condition in the intensive care unit.
A total of 59 patients with mild symptoms or who are clinically well but still test positive are isolated and cared for in community facilities.
In addition to 28 patients who died from complications of COVID-19, another 15 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. . heart disease.
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