Singapore reports 334 new coronavirus cases

Singapore was facing a "critical situation" in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, a top minister said on Tuesday, as 334 new cases were reported in the city-state, taking the total number of COVID-19 patients to 3,252.

"We remain in a critical situation. The number of cases has been increasing," Health Minister Gan Kim Yong told reporters.

The number of cases among foreign workers, especially those in dormitories, rose sharply to around 200 cases per day, reaching about 300 cases on Monday, said Gan.

"This increase is likely to continue as we undertake more testing in the dormitories. The outbreak in the foreign workers' dormitories has become an important front in our fight against COVID-19," he said.

A large number of Singapore's recent COVID-19 cases have been linked to foreign workers' dormitories.

Eight dormitories, housing foreign workers, have been declared isolation areas, meaning residents have to be quarantined in their rooms. Singapore has 43 purpose-built dormitories housing some 200,000 workers and about 1,200 factory-converted dormitories housing some 95,000 workers.

About 5,000 foreign workers are expected to be tested in the next few days.

"Our commitment to the foreign workers is that if they are infected, we want to find them, and we want to be very clear that we're not intending to leave them alone unattended, said Kenneth Mak, the Health Ministry's director of medical services.

"Our immediate priority for the workers in the dormitories is to help them stay healthy and minimize the number that gets infected, assured Manpower Minister Josephine Teo.

The multi-ministry task force, handling COVID-19 crisis, was working on a strategy for testing at dormitories.

At this point in time, for the majority of the purpose-built dormitories, we don't have an approach of testing everyone ... It's a much more targeted approach of testing those who step forward, who are sick with symptoms, Channel News Asia quoted Mak as saying.

All of Tuesday's cases were locally infected.

Of the new cases, 189 are linked to previously identified clusters and 23 are linked to other local cases.

A total of 122 are still unlinked, pending contact tracing. Of these, 24 are Singapore citizens and the remaining 98 are long-term pass holders.

Nine patients have died from complications due to COVID-19.

Singapore recorded the highest daily cases 386 on Monday.

Wearing face masks, covering nose and mouth, is mandatory for all in Singapore and a first-time offender will face a fine of SGD 300. Only people involved in strenuous exercise and children below the age of two are exempted.

Meanwhile, foreign workers celebrated the Tamil and Bengali New Year on Tuesday. The Inter-Agency Taskforce teamed up with Singapore's Hindu Endowments Board (HEB) to distribute festive goodies to foreign workers.

It is a tradition to have specially made sweets to welcome the New Year.

Traditional Indian sweets, including laddu, paal gova prepared by Hindu temples here, were distributed to foreign workers across 22 locations. This is a first of its kind effort by the HEB, bringing temples together to produce traditional sweets on this scale.

The Taskforce also provided the workers with fast food treats to celebrate the occasion, distributing over 90,000 meals from KFC, including vegetarian pizza, in addition to their daily meals.

"We hope that these festive goodies will help to lift the spirits of the foreign workers as they celebrate this festive occasion, said the Manpower Ministry.