219 new coronavirus cases in Singapore, including 6 in the community

[SINGAPORE] There are 219 new coronavirus cases confirmed as of Friday noon, taking Singapore's total to 42,955.

They include six community cases, comprising five Singaporeans or permanent residents and one work pass holder, said the Ministry of Health (MOH) on Friday.

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

More details will be announced on Friday night.

On Thursday, the ministry said twelve places, including 313@somerset, VivoCity and Bugis Junction, are among the new places on a list of venues which Covid-19 patients visited.

Besides these three malls, the other locations newly added to the list of places visited by the patients when they were infectious are POSB bank at Kaki Bukit Recreation Centre, a Sheng Siong supermarket at 301 Geylang Road, Haniffa at 118 Dunlop Street, Heartland Mall, Queensway Shopping Centre, Seah Im Food Centre, Lucky Plaza, Peninsula Shopping Centre and Kallang Wave Mall, the ministry said on Thursday.

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MOH provided this list of locations that Covid-19 patients have visited for more than 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 of locations and the times the patients were there can be found on MOH's website.

MOH also said that among the five community cases announced on Thursday is a Singaporean man.

The 50-year-old man showed the onset of symptoms last Friday and was confirmed to have the virus on Thursday. He was tested when he sought medical treatment.

He is currently unlinked to other cases.

The remaining four community cases are two work pass holders and two work permit holders. All four men, aged between 35 and 42, are asymptomatic.

Two of them - an Indian national and a Filipino national - work in essential services and were picked up as part of the ministry's proactive screening and surveillance.

The other two who are Bangladeshi and Indian nationals are contacts of previously confirmed cases and were swabbed during quarantine.

The 113 new Covid-19 patients confirmed by MOH on Thursday is lower than the average of 201 new cases per day reported in the past seven days.

Migrant workers living in dormitories make up the remaining 108 cases.

No additional clusters were announced on Thursday.

The average number of new daily community cases has come down from seven cases a week ago to four in the past week. The average unlinked community cases per day has remained at two for the past two weeks.

With 305 cases discharged on Thursday, 36,593 patients have fully recovered from the disease.

A total of 189 patients remained in hospital on Thursday, including one who is in critical condition in the intensive care unit, while 5,917 are recuperating in community facilities.

Singapore has had 26 deaths from Covid-19 complications, while 11 who tested positive have died of other causes.

Globally, the virus outbreak, which began in December last year, has infected more than 9.69 million people. More than 490,000 people have died.

THE STRAITS TIMES