Singapore reports 75 new Covid-19 cases; majority from dormitories

Singapore reported 75 new COVID-19 infections on Wednesday, including 60 from dormitories housing foreign workers, taking the total number of cases to 57,166, the health ministry said.

The new cases also included 14 imported infections and one from the community who is a foreigner on a work pass, the Ministry of Health (MOH) said.

With this, the total number of COVID-19 infections across the country has reached 57,166.

The ministry said that 31 cases confirmed on Wednesday were from Westlite Toh Guan dormitory, the vast majority of whom were tested during quarantine.

The other 29 dorm cases were detected through surveillance testing, such as MOH's biweekly rostered routine testing of workers in dorms.

The MOH announced a new cluster in a dormitory on Tuesday.

One of the newly confirmed cases was linked to 13 previous infections, forming a new cluster at S11 Dormitory @ Punggol, it said.

The sole imported case, reported on Tuesday, is a one-year-old Singaporean baby, who arrived from India on August 24, reported The Straits Times.

He was placed on a 14-day stay-home notice upon arrival here and was tested while serving the notice at a dedicated facility.

Among the Tuesday's 46 cases residing in dormitories, 25 had been identified earlier as contacts of previous cases and tested during quarantine, while rest 21 were detected through surveillance testing, such as the bi-weekly rostered routine testing of workers.

The Ministry said it was able to ring-fence them quickly to prevent further transmission, by aggressively containing, tracing and isolating the close contacts.

Besides the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test, the MOH has also conducted serological tests to determine if some of these cases are current or past infections.

The serological test results for 4 cases have come back positive so far, which indicate likely past infections.

With 53 patients discharged on Tuesday, a total of 56,461 patients have fully recovered from the disease.

As of Tuesday, 48 patients remained in hospital, while 555 were recuperating in community facilities.