Two more deaths from Covid-19, bringing S'pore's death toll to 20

[SINGAPORE] The Ministry of Health (MOH) said on Wednesday (May 6) that two more people have died from complications due to Covid-19 raising the death toll to 20.

A 97-year-old Singaporean woman died on Tuesday night. She was confirmed to have Covid-19 infection on April 7, and had a history of hypertension. The National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID) has reached out to her family and is extending assistance to them.

The other patient is a 73-year-old Singaporean man who died on Wednesday. He was confirmed to have Covid-19 on April 7, and had a history of hypertension, hyperlipidaemia and diabetes mellitus. Singapore General Hospital has reached out to his family and is extending assistance to them.

MOH also said that foreign workers living in dormitories continue to make up the bulk of new cases in Singapore as the country's total number of cases surpassed the 20,000 mark on Wednesday.

The ministry said in its daily update that a total of 759 of the 788 cases announced on Wednesday are foreign workers from dormitories.

There are 13 cases in the community, of which 11 are Singaporeans or permanent residents, while two are work pass holders.

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Foreign workers not living in dormitories make up the other 16 of the new cases. There are no imported cases.

MOH also announced seven new clusters.

This is the 13th successive day when new daily cases are below 1,000.

This brings the total number of coronavirus cases in Singapore to 20,198.

From the first coronavirus case on Jan 23, Singapore took about 13 weeks to cross the 10,000 mark on April 22.

But this figure doubled in a much shorter time in the last two weeks to hit just over 20,000 on Wednesday.

MOH has said the recent spike in patient numbers is largely driven by the increase in cases in dormitories and active testing of workers staying there.

The ministry also reported recently that the average daily number of cases outside dormitories in the past week has generally been falling.

Globally, the outbreak, which began in December last year, has infected more than 3.6 million people. Some 257,000 patients have died.

The United States is the worst affected country in the world with more than 1.2 million cases and 71,000 deaths from Covid-19 as of Wednesday.

THE STRAITS TIMES