4 Covid-19 community infections among 25 new cases in Singapore

Singapore

THERE were 25 new coronavirus cases, including four in the community, the Ministry of Health reported on Friday at noon.

This takes Singapore's total number of cases to 61,311.

The other 21 cases were imported. They had been placed on stay-home-notices or isolated on arrival from Singapore, said MOH. There were no cases from the workers' dorms.

Singapore has had 31 deaths from Covid-19 complications, while 15 who tested positive have died of other causes.

Covid-19 will feature prominently when Parliament sits on May 10, with MPs filing 22 questions related to the pandemic.

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According to the agenda issued by the Clerk of Parliament on Friday, most of these questions centre on vaccine efficacy, imported cases and virus variants.

Businesses should not use people's exposure alert information from the TraceTogether app to grant or deny access to premises, said the Ministry of Health and the Smart Nation and Digital Government Office in a joint statement on Friday.

Although people may receive alerts to monitor their health after being in the general vicinity of a Covid-19 case, the risk is "very small" as they may not have interacted with the case at close quarters given the space of some establishments, such as malls, the statement said.

Both agencies are responding to reports of business owners turning away visitors and customers whose TraceTogether records showed that they have been in close proximity to Covid-19 cases.

These business, such as ComfortDelGro Driving Centre (CDC) and cruise operators Royal Caribbean and Dream Cruises, had required customers to show them their TraceTogether records.

"Persons who are deemed close contacts of a case with Covid-19, identified through TraceTogether and contact tracing interviews, would have already received a quarantine order," said the joint statement. THE STRAITS TIMES