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SINGAPORE: Singapore reported a record 728 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday (April 16), bringing the total number of infections in the country to 4,427.
Of the new cases, 81 percent are linked to previously identified groups, while the rest are pending follow-up contacts, the Ministry of Health (MS) said in the press release.
A total of 654 new cases come from foreign workers’ dormitories, while 26 new cases are work permit holders residing outside the dormitories.
Looking at local cases in the community, 48 cases were reported Thursday, and there were no new imported cases.
Among the new cases is an 89-year-old resident of Pacific Healthcare Nursing Home at 21 Senja Road, according to the Agency for Integrated Care.
The resident, identified as Case 4053, is now protected in an isolation room at Ng Teng Fong General Hospital.
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The ministry noted that the number of new cases among work permit holders residing in dormitories has increased significantly “in line with our continued efforts to actively assess and isolate infected workers.”
Among work permit holders who do not live in dormitories, the number of new cases has increased to an average of 15 per day in the last week from an average of 9 per day in the previous week.
On the other hand, the number of new cases in the community has decreased slightly, to an average of 37 per day in the last week, from an average of 38 cases per day in the previous week.
The Ministry of Health added that 31 more patients have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities. In total, 683 have fully recovered from the infection and have been discharged.
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5 NEW CLUSTERS
The ministry identified five new groups: the Leo Bedroom (23 Kaki Bukit Road 3), the SJ Bedroom (180 Woodlands Industrial Park E5), Westlite Mandai (34 Mandai Estate), 17 Sungei Kadut Street 4, and Grandwork Building (7 Sungei Kadut Street ) 3)
Between April 9 and 15, the Ministry of Health discovered links for 415 previously unrelated cases.
Two more groups have been closed, as there have been no new cases linked to them for the past 28 days, constituting two incubation periods. They are the groups in Masjid Al-Muttaqin and the Church of Singapore (Bukit Timah).
On Thursday morning, Mandai Lodge 1 was declared an isolation area after a new group of cases was identified there.
INTERACTIVE: All COVID-19 groups in dormitories and construction sites.
A total of 154 new cases have been linked to this group, which now has a total of 161 confirmed cases, according to data from the Ministry of Health.
Three more bedrooms were subsequently published: Shaw Lodge Dormitory (12 Shaw Road), North Coast Lodge (51 North Coast Avenue), and Tuas View Dormitory (70 Tuas South Avenue 1).
Shaw Lodge has a total of 28 confirmed cases. North Coast Lodge has 26 cases, while Tuas View Dormitory has 73 cases.
There are now 12 dormitories of foreign workers under isolation in total.
S11 Dormitory @ Punggol remains the largest group with 979 confirmed cases.
The next largest group is Sungei Tengah Lodge with 351 confirmed cases.
The Westlite Toh Guan bedroom, one of the first two bedrooms to be gazetised, now has a total of 115 confirmed cases.
ACTION TAKEN AGAINST THOSE WHO VIOLATE MEASURES COVID-19
A man who failed to comply with his notice to stay home to run errands and eat bak kut pleaded guilty Thursday to exposing others to the risk of infection, the first such case.
The 34-year-old man did not immediately go home when he landed in Singapore from Myanmar and when he went home, he did not stay there.
Instead, he appeared in public multiple times over a four-hour period in behavior labeled “blatantly irresponsible” by prosecutors.
Monday through Wednesday, 19 cases of enforcement actions were also taken against members of the public for violating safe distancing requirements in the markets and cooked food sections of street vendor centers, according to the National Environment Agency (NEA). ).
In one case, on Wednesday, a man was seen eating in the cooked food section of a street vendor center on Block 89 Circuit Road when NEA officers approached him.
The man declined to provide his details to NEA officials, who then activated the police. The man tried to leave before the police arrived, and when a NEA officer tried to stop him, the man hit the officer in the face.
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