Singapore’s COVID-19 cases near 55,000-mark with 132 new patients

Two of them were Singaporeans (citizens) or Permanent Residents (foreigners), two were Work Pass holders and the remaining two are a Dependant’s Pass holder and a Long-Term Visit Pass holder. All of them had been placed on 14-day Stay-Home Notice (SHN) upon arrival in Singapore, and were serving their SHN at dedicated facilities.

Singapore has reported 132 new COVID-19 cases, including six imported ones in the last 24 hours, taking the country’s caseload to 54,929, the health ministry said on Saturday. The vast majority of the new infections are work permit holders residing in foreign worker dormitories, the Ministry of Health (MOH) said.

It said that there was no community transmission. The ministry said that 132 new cases in the last 24 hours took the total number of coronavirus cases in the country to 54,929.

All the imported cases had been placed on stay-home notice upon arrival in Singapore, the ministry said. On Friday, the ministry completed testing all migrant workers living in dormitories for COVID-19, except for those in “a few” standalone blocks that serve as quarantine facilities, Channel News Asia reported.

The workers in these facilities will be tested when their isolation ends, and the case counts are expected to remain high in the coming days before tapering, the ministry said. With workers, who have either been cleared or recovered from the coronavirus, back on the job, construction activity will be able to resume by the end of the month as well, said Education Minister Lawrence Wong, co-chair of the COVID-19 multi-ministry task force.

He urged the contractors to put in place the required safe management measures. Workers will still be tested once in every two weeks after they return to work, which is widely expected by the end of this month, said the minister.

“Just because we have COVID-19 cleared dormitories doesn't mean that we should assume these are permanently COVID-19 safe dormitories, because we all know that the virus can flare up again,” Wong cautioned. The government will also continue working with the employers to ensure that construction activities are carried out in a “safer manner” to minimise the chances of large clusters forming, said Wong.

All six imported cases reported on Friday arrived from India between July 25-27. Two of them were Singaporeans (citizens) or Permanent Residents (foreigners), two were Work Pass holders and the remaining two are a Dependant’s Pass holder and a Long-Term Visit Pass holder.

All of them had been placed on 14-day Stay-Home Notice (SHN) upon arrival in Singapore, and were serving their SHN at dedicated facilities. All were placed on 14-day stay-home notices upon arrival, and were tested while serving their notices at dedicated facilities.

With 281 people discharged on Friday, 48,297 patients have fully recovered from the disease. A total of 124 patients remain in hospital, while 6,334 are recuperating in community facilities for mild symptoms.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)