Singapore reports 486 new COVID-19 cases, mostly foreign workers

Foreign workers living in dormitories in Singapore continue to form the bulk of the COVID-19 infections as the country reported 486 new cases, taking the total number of infections to 23,822, the health ministry said on Monday.

The new cases include only two Singapore citizens and permanent residents (foreigners), while the rest are foreign workers, it said.

With this, the total number of cases in the country reached to 23,822.

On Sunday, the ministry said that 33 COVID-19 cases from a laboratory were found false positives due to an apparatus calibration issue for one of its test kits.

Subsequent re-testing at the National Public Health Laboratory confirmed that the cases, and two more that had equivocal results, were negative.

The lab has also stopped all tests and is working to solve the calibration issue, it said.

A total of 20,961 workers from dormitories have been diagnosed with COVID-19 so far, accounting for about 6.5 per cent of the 323,000 dorm residents, it said.

As of Sunday, 2,715 patients have fully recovered from the virus.

So far, 20 people have died from COVID-19 complications here and six others who tested positive have died from other causes.