SINGAPORE - There were 12 new coronavirus cases confirmed as at Thursday noon (Feb 11), taking Singapore's total to 59,759.

They included three community cases, said the Ministry of Health (MOH).

There were also nine imported cases who were placed on stay-home notice on arrival in Singapore.

There were no cases from migrant workers' dormitories.

More details will be announced on Thursday night.

On Wednesday, a 22-year-old construction worker from Bangladesh was the only local case of Covid-19 reported.

In addition, there were 14 imported cases confirmed by the Health Ministry.

The construction worker's earlier tests from rostered routine testing (RRT) - the last on Jan 24 - were negative for the infection, said MOH.

"His serology test result has come back positive but we are unable to rule out that this could be a recent infection," it said.

A positive serology test indicates a possible past infection.

"As a precautionary measure, all his close contacts at the dormitory and his workplace have been placed on quarantine."

The patient, who stays in a dormitory in Bedok South Road, was asymptomatic. His infection was detected when he was tested on Sunday as part of RRT, said MOH.

He was tested in a pool and was immediately isolated when the pooled results came back positive on Monday. Pooled tests combine swabs of several individuals for one laboratory test. Where a pooled test is positive, the original individuals may be re-tested individually to identify the infected person.

An individual test done on Tuesday returned a positive result for the worker, who was then taken by ambulance to the National Centre for Infectious Diseases.

The 14 imported cases tested positive while serving stay-home notice, said MOH. They came from several countries including India, Brazil and Myanmar.

Overall, the number of new cases in the community increased to four cases in the past week from three cases in the week before.

The number of unlinked cases in the community also increased to four in the past week from two cases in the week before.

With 20 cases discharged on Wednesday, 59,511 patients have fully recovered from the disease.

A total of 36 patients remain in hospital, including one in the intensive care unit, while 156 are recuperating in community facilities.

Singapore has had 29 deaths from Covid-19 complications, while 15 who tested positive have died of other causes.

Globally, the virus outbreak, which began in December 2019, has infected more than 106 million people. Over 2.3 million people have died.