24 recovered workers test positive for Covid-19 at Westlite Woodlands dormitory

[SINGAPORE] The Ministry of Health (MOH), on Tuesday night (April 27), said it found that 24 recovered workers at Westlite Woodlands dormitory tested positive for Covid-19.

Of these cases, five are likely to be cases of re-infection, MOH said.

They occupied the same room at the dormitory as the 35-year-old Bangladeshi construction supervisor and his roommate who had tested positive for Covid-19 last week.

MOH added: "There is currently no evidence of transmission to the rest of the dormitory." Among the re-infection cases, two had recently arrived from Bangladesh on April 6.

Said MOH: "Our epidemiological investigations found that they were likely to have been infected while overseas, and passed the infection to the others in the room." They form a new cluster of seven cases linked to the 35-year-old Bangladeshi construction supervisor and his roommate who were confirmed to have the virus last week.

Meanwhile, eleven of the 24 cases have been assessed to be shedding virus fragments.

Two more cases have been determined to be negative for Covid-19 upon re-testing, and the remaining six cases are pending assessment by the expert panel comprising infectious diseases and microbiology experts.

The sole community case on Tuesday announced by MOH is a 42-year-old Indonesian sea crew working on board bunker tanker MT ALLI who is linked to a previous case.

This brings the total number of cases linked to the bunker tanker to six.

He had not disembarked from the vessel except to go for the first dose of Covid-19 vaccination on April 8.

There were also 11 imported cases confirmed by MOH, taking Singapore's total to 61,063.

All of them had been placed on stay-home notice upon arrival in Singapore.

They arrived from countries including India, Ivory Coast and Malaysia.

THE STRAITS TIMES