2 pre-school staff, including My First Skool employee, among 614 new coronavirus cases in S'pore

[SINGAPORE] Two pre-school staff members are among the four new Singaporean Covid-19 cases announced on Friday (May 22).

One of them is a 58-year-old Singaporean woman who went to work at My First Skool @ Westgate after the onset of symptoms on May 8. She was confirmed to have the virus on Thursday.

In its daily update, the Ministry of Health (MOH) said that for Singaporeans, permanent residents, work pass holders and foreign workers not living in dormitories, the average number of new daily community cases has increased from five cases two weeks ago to seven in the past week.

This is partly due to active surveillance and screening of nursing home residents and pre-school staff, which have picked up more cases in the past week.

A total of 838 more Covid-19 patients were discharged from hospitals and community facilities on Friday. This means that 12,946, or about 43 per cent, of the total of 30,426 Covid-19 patients in Singapore have fully recovered from the virus.

This is also the 10th consecutive day in which the number of patients discharged exceeded the new cases.

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Of the 798 patients who are still in hospital, eight are in critical condition in the intensive care unit. This is the lowest number of patients in intensive care since the start of the circuit breaker on April 7.

The number of unlinked cases has remained stable at two per day in the past two weeks.

Of the new cases, only 1 per cent were unlinked, and contact tracing is ongoing.

However, another two new clusters were announced at 564 A-E Balestier Road and 71 Kaki Bukit Industrial Terrace.

The remaining 610 new cases are foreign workers staying in dormitories, bringing the total number of cases here past the 30,000 mark.

As of Friday, 28,161 of the 323,000 migrant workers staying in dormitories, or more than 8 per cent, have tested positive for Covid-19.

In all, another 16,650 are isolated and cared for at community facilities.

In total, 23 patients have died from Covid-19 complications and nine who tested positive have died from other causes.

Globally, the outbreak, which began in December last year, has infected close to 5.2 million people. Over 334,000 have died.

THE STRAITS TIMES