191 new Covid-19 cases in Singapore, including 16 in the community and 1 imported

The 16 community cases include eight people who are close contacts of earlier cases. ST PHOTO: JASON QUAH

SINGAPORE - There are 191 new coronavirus cases confirmed as of Friday noon (July 10), taking Singapore's total to 45,613.

They include 16 community cases, comprising seven Singaporeans or permanent residents and nine work pass holders, said the Ministry of Health (MOH) on Friday. Of these 16, eight are close contacts of earlier cases, and had already been placed on quarantine. Epidemiological investigations are ongoing for the other cases.

There is also one imported case who had been placed on stay-home notice (SHN) upon arrival in Singapore.

Migrant workers living in dormitories make up the vast majority of the other cases.

More details will be announced on Friday night.

On Thursday, MOH added Bugis Junction, People's Park Food Centre, Old Airport Road Food Centre, the Singapore Safety Driving Centre in Woodlands and Wisma Atria to the list of places visited by Covid-19 patients while they were still infectious.

The ministry provides the list of locations that Covid-19 patients visited for at least 30 minutes to get those who were at these places to monitor their health closely for two weeks from the date of their visit.

It 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.

The full list can be found on MOH's website.

The ministry also said that a 38-year-old Bangladeshi man died from cardio-respiratory failure on Tuesday, becoming the 14th case of a patient who tested positive for the coronavirus but died from other causes here.

He was taken to Ng Teng Fong General Hospital on June 28 after suffering a seizure, and later developed intracranial haemorrhage. He was confirmed to have Covid-19 on the same day. The preliminary cause of death was cardio-respiratory failure, pending further investigations by the coroner.

MOH also gave an update on the 58 households at Block 111 Tampines Street 11 placed under active phone surveillance, with Covid-19 testing done for them and their visitors. The ministry earlier said this was done as a precautionary measure after nine confirmed cases from two households residing at the block were detected.

All infected people from these two households were isolated earlier and are recovering in hospitals or community care facilities.

On Thursday, MOH said that 123 residents and visitors have been tested so far, and all their results have come back negative.

Epidemiological investigations are under way, but there is no evidence of spread beyond the two households so far. MOH said it will continue to closely monitor the situation.

One imported case was among the new coronavirus patients announced on Thursday.

The patient is a permanent resident who returned to Singapore from India on June 23. She was placed on a 14-day stay-home notice upon arrival in Singapore and was tested while serving the notice.

There were also 21 new community cases announced on Thursday, of which 10 are linked to previously announced patients and clusters, while 11 are currently unlinked.

Migrant workers living in dormitories made up the remaining 103 cases.

The average number of new daily cases in the community during a week has increased from nine cases two weeks ago to 16 in the past week.

The number of unlinked cases in the community during a week has increased from a daily average of four cases two weeks ago to the daily average of eight in the past week.

With 322 cases discharged on Thursday, 41,631 patients have fully recovered from the disease.

A total of 197 patients remain in hospital, including one in the intensive care unit, while 3,554 are recuperating in community facilities.

Singapore has had 26 deaths from Covid-19 complications.

Globally, the virus outbreak, which began in December last year, has infected more than 12.3 million people. More than 556,000 people have died.

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