NUS don and two Bangladeshi workers among 8 new cases

Singapore

EIGHT more cases of the novel coronavirus - all with links to previous ones - were announced on Thursday, bringing the total number of infected people in Singapore to 58.

Five of the new cases are linked to the Grace Assembly of God church, including a 54-year-old National University of Singapore (NUS) professor, the Ministry of Health (MOH) said on Thursday.

The professor did not interact with colleagues and students after he fell ill.

The cluster is now linked to seven confirmed cases, including two announced on Wednesday.

Another two new cases are Bangladeshi work pass holders, aged 30 and 37, who are linked to a worksite in Seletar Aerospace Heights.

The worksite is now linked to a cluster of four cases, all of whom are Bangladeshi nationals.

The last new case is a 30-year-old Singaporean man who is a family member of case 50, the 62-year-old male DBS Bank employee who was confirmed to have the virus on Wednesday. None of the new cases has recent travel history to China. They are all currently warded in isolation rooms at the National Centre for Infectious Diseases.

Of the five new cases linked to the Grace Assembly of God church, two were confirmed to have the virus on Wednesday afternoon, and the other three tested positive on Thursday morning. All five are Singaporeans. They include four men, aged 26, 48, 54 and 58, and one 54-year-old woman.

Case 51, the 48-year-old man, fell ill on Feb 4 and saw a GP on Feb 5 and 10. He went to the NCID on Feb 11.

Before being hospitalised, he went to work at both of the church's locations, in Tanglin Road and Bukit Batok West.

Case 53, the 54-year-old NUS professor, fell ill on Feb 10 and went to the NCID on Feb 12. He tested positive the same day.

It is unclear if the other three cases linked to the church - cases 54, 57 and 58 - are congregants or workers. Two previous cases in the cluster, cases 48 and 49, were both church workers who visited both locations.

One of the Bangladeshis confirmed to be infected on Thursday, case 52, fell ill on Feb 7.

He reported that he had mostly stayed in his rental apartment in Campbell Lane since he fell sick.

The 37-year-old was identified as a close contact of the two previously identified Bangladeshi work pass holders, who both worked at the Seletar Aerospaces Heights worksite.

The MOH also said on Thursday that Singapore will continue to rely on laboratory tests to confirm cases of infection.

It added that it would not change its approach to confirming cases of the virus despite the Chinese authorities adopting new broader guidelines, including the use of CT scans and clinical diagnosis of symptoms.

New diagnostic guidelines for confirming cases in China kicked in on Wednesday, allowing doctors to assess patients clinically and diagnose cases.

This means a patient can be confirmed to be suffering from Covid-19, as the disease is called, if they have symptoms of severe respiratory tract disease and a CT scan shows lesions in their lungs.

Previously, cases would only be confirmed after laboratory tests.

The number of confirmed cases in China's Hubei province spiked after the new guidelines were adopted.

The death toll in Hubei also rose by 242 to 1,310 as of Wednesday after figures were revised to include cases that have not been lab-confirmed. THE STRAITS TIMES