Two pre-school staff among four new S'porean coronavirus cases; 2 new clusters

Two pre-school employees are among the four new Singaporean Covid-19 cases announced yesterday.

One is a 58-year-old woman who works at My First Skool @ Westgate. She was confirmed to have the virus on Thursday after she began showing symptoms on May 8.

The other is a 50-year-old woman who is a pre-school employee but had not gone to work recently.

In its daily update, the Ministry of Health (MOH) said the average number of new daily community cases - which does not include foreign workers staying in dormitories - has risen from five cases two weeks ago to seven in the past week.

This is partly due to active surveillance and screening of nursing home residents and pre-school staff, resulting in more cases being picked up in the past week.

The other two new Singaporean cases are men, aged 35 and 37, who are contacts of an earlier confirmed case and part of the CDPL Tuas Dormitory cluster. The cluster now has 617 cases.

A total of 838 more Covid-19 patients were discharged from hospitals and community facilities yesterday. This means 12,946, or about 43 per cent, of the total of 30,426 Covid-19 patients in Singapore have fully recovered from the disease.

This is also the 10th day in a row that the number of patients discharged has exceeded the new cases.

Of the 798 patients who are still in hospital, eight are in critical condition in the intensive care unit. This is the lowest number of patients in intensive care since the start of the circuit breaker on April 7.

The number of unlinked cases in the community has remained stable at two per day in the past two weeks.

Of the new cases, only 1 per cent were unlinked, and contact tracing is ongoing.​

Imported: 0

Work permit (WP) holders in dormitories: 610

Singaporeans/PRs: 4

Work passes: 0

Visit passes: 0

WP holders: 0

Total: 30,426

Community: 1,685

WP holders in dorms: 28,161

Imported: 580

In ICU now: 8

Deaths from Covid-19: 23

Deaths from other causes: 9

However, another two new clusters were announced at 564 A-E Balestier Road and 71 Kaki Bukit Industrial Terrace.

The remaining 610 new cases are foreign workers staying in dormitories, bringing the total number of cases in Singapore past the 30,000 mark.

As of yesterday, 28,161 of the 323,000 migrant workers staying in dormitories, or more than 8 per cent, have tested positive for Covid-19.

In all, another 16,650 Covid-19 patients are isolated and cared for in community facilities.

In total, 23 patients have died from Covid-19 complications, and nine who tested positive have died from other causes.

Globally, the outbreak, which began in December last year, has infected over 5.2 million people. More than 336,000 have died.