94 new Covid-19 cases in Singapore, including 4 in community and 58 Sungei Tengah Lodge residents

Among the remaining 80 cases residing in dormitories, 58 are from Sungei Tengah Lodge and they had been quarantined earlier. ST PHOTO: KELVIN CHNG

SINGAPORE - There were 94 new coronavirus cases confirmed as of Friday noon (Aug 28), taking Singapore's total to 56,666.

They included four community cases, comprising Singaporeans or permanent residents, said the Ministry of Health (MOH).

There were also 10 imported cases who had been placed on stay-home notices or isolated upon arrival in Singapore.

Among the remaining 80 cases residing in dormitories, 58 are from Sungei Tengah Lodge and they had been quarantined earlier.

MOH said the vast majority of them were tested during quarantine to determine their status, or were picked up through rostered routine testing.

A coronavirus cluster at Sungei Tengah Lodge was announced on Aug 22. After the cluster was detected, MOH placed about 4,500 workers on quarantine, and has tested about 3,000 of them so far.

The ministry added that it expects the number of cases from the dormitory to continue to be high in the coming days until testing of the remaining quarantined workers is completed.

More details on Friday's new Covid-19 cases will be announced later in the night.

On Thursday, Sheng Siong supermarket at Elias Mall and Our Tampines Hub were added to the list of places visited by Covid-19 patients while they were infectious.

The ministry provides the list to get those who were at these places at specific periods to monitor their health closely for two weeks from the date of their visit. The full list can be found on MOH's website.

The ministry has said that close contacts would already have been notified, and that there is no need to avoid these places as they would have been cleaned, if needed.

There were 77 new coronavirus cases confirmed on Thursday.

They included two community cases, both Singaporeans, said MOH.

One of the community cases was linked to a previous patient and had visited a camera shop at Excelsior Shopping Centre, where she may have had contact with a case who went to work at the shop when he was infectious.

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MOH said the risk of infection is low but, as a precaution, it will contact all individuals who had visited the shop between Aug 15 and 18, and facilitate Covid-19 testing for them.

The other community case was unlinked as of Thursday night.

There were also five imported cases, including an 82-year-old Singaporean woman who had returned to Singapore from India.

All the imported cases were placed on stay-home notices upon arrival in Singapore.

Migrant workers staying in dormitories made up the remaining 70 new cases announced on Thursday.

The average number of new daily cases in the community in a week has increased from one case two weeks ago, to two in the past week.

The number of unlinked cases in the community has remained stable at an average of one case per day over the same period.

Singapore has had 27 deaths from Covid-19 complications, while 15 who tested positive have died of other causes.

Globally, the virus outbreak, which began in December last year, has infected more than 24.6 million people. More than 834,700 people have died.

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