An 11th patient, a 95-year-old Singaporean man, died yesterday from complications due to the coronavirus.
He was confirmed to have the coronavirus on Monday, and Raffles Hospital is extending assistance to his family, the Ministry of Health (MOH) said in its update on infection numbers.
The latest numbers once more showed that foreign workers living in dormitories drove the increase. They made up 558 of the 623 new Covid-19 cases as at noon yesterday, and bring the total number of patients in dorms to 3,269.
This means that about 1 per cent of the 323,000 living in dorms have already tested positive, as the full extent of the spread of the virus in dorms becomes clearer with the ministry's stepped-up testing.
Four more clusters linked to dormitories were also announced, including three large purpose-built dormitories: Tuas South Dormitory and Avery Lodge Dormitory, both linked to six cases, and Jurong Penjuru Dormitory, which now had 16 cases.
This means that more than half - 22 of 43 - of Singapore's purpose-built dormitories, along with several smaller factory-converted dormitories, have reported active clusters in recent weeks.
Singapore's largest cluster, S11 Dormitory @ Punggol, added another 144 cases and now has 1,123 cases - more than a fifth of the country's total of 5,050.
MOH said it was also particularly concerned about the surfacing of community cases that have become increasingly difficult to trace.
The number of unlinked cases in the community has increased from an average of 19 cases per day two weeks ago to a daily average of 22 in the past week. Samples of patients at polyclinics and GPs have also tested positive for Covid-19 infections under its surveillance programme, an indication of undetected cases in the community.
Yesterday, there were 27 community cases in Singapore, comprising 22 Singaporeans and permanent residents, four with work passes, and a visitor. MOH noted that this figure was lower than the average in the past week of 32 cases per day, and a fall from the daily average of 40 cases two weeks ago.
The ministry said the circuit breaker measures, into their 11th day yesterday, appear to have helped, but that the numbers will still require careful monitoring in the next few days for any conclusion to be drawn.
Yesterday also saw one imported case and 37 work permit holders who lived outside dormitories who were infected.
National Development Minister Lawrence Wong said in a Facebook post that people can expect the number of new confirmed foreign worker patients linked to dorms to remain high for some time as many are working doubly hard to test the workers and isolate those who are infected from the healthy.
He said the vast majority of the workers are young and show only mild symptoms, and the Government is preparing additional facilities to accommodate those who recover. None of the foreign patients linked to dorms is in intensive care.
