SINGAPORE (Apr 18): Singapore reported 623 new cases of Covid-19 on Friday, bringing the total number of infections in the republic to 5,050.
The nation also reported its 11th death, of a 95-year old Singaporean who passed away on Friday from complications due to the Covid-19 infection. He had tested positive for the virus on April 13.
Of the new cases, 483 or 65% are linked to previously identified clusters. The remaining are pending contact tracing, the Ministry of Health (MOH) announced in its daily update.
27 cases originated among the general population and one case was imported.
Meanwhile, 558 cases are linked to foreign worker dormitories, while another 37 are among work permit holders residing outside dormitories.
MOH has also identified four new dormitory clusters: Tuas South Dormitory, Avery Lodge Dormitory, Penjuru Dormitory and 4 Sungei Kadut Street 2.
Given the rapid transmission of the virus in workers’ accommodation sites, three more dormitories – Tuas View Dormitory, Shaw Lodge Dormitory and North Coast Lodge – were gazetted as isolation areas on Friday. This brings the total number of workers’ dormitories under isolation to 12.
“Long fight” ahead
Looking at the number of cases, MOH says there has been a decline since the month-long circuit-breaker restricting the operations of non-essential services since April 7. Since then, the daily average number of cases has dipped from 40 to 32, the ministry observes.
Even so, National Development Minister Lawrence Wong says the city state should prepare for a “long fight”. “Covid-19 will be with us for many more months, and likely beyond the end of the year. We have to be prepared for future waves of infection and we have to steel ourselves for a long fight,” Wong said in a Facebook post on Friday.
Touching on the spread of the virus in foreign worker dormitories, Wong – who is also co-chair of the multi-ministry Task Force focused on combatting Covid-19 - says he expects the number of cases to remain high.
“The vast majority of the workers are young and they tend to have very mild cough/cold symptoms that are not picked up temperature taking alone,” he explains.
“So, the teams are working doubly hard to sweep through the dorms and test the workers, [that is] why we are seeing high reported cases every day”
For now, he expects the number of cases to remain high as workers continue to undergo testing.
But Wong is positive the spread will soon be stemmed in workers’ dormitories.
“We are going all out to suppress the virus outbreak [there]. It’s a massive undertaking involving many people on the frontline,” he stresses.
