As of Monday noon(4 May), the Ministry of Health (MOH) has confirmed an additional 573 cases of COVID-19 infection in Singapore.
This brings the total tally of infected cases to 18,778.
There are no imported cases today.
There are 5 cases of community infection, all are Singaporeans/Singapore Permanent Resident, 8 cases involving Work Permit holders residing outside dormitories and 560 cases involving Work Permit holders residing in dormitories.
Of the new cases, 89% are linked to known clusters, while the rest are pending contact tracing.
Three new clusters identified
- 13 of the earlier confirmed cases have now been linked to form a new cluster at Hai Leck Engineering Pte Ltd (9 Tuas Avenue 1).
- Two of the newly confirmed cases are linked to 41 previous cases to form a new cluster at the Melody Springs construction site (477A Yishun Street 44).
- Six of the newly confirmed cases are linked to five previous cases to form a new cluster at 6 Tuas Basin Link.
Cases from public healthcare sector
Case 18510 is a 33 year-old female Singapore Citizen who has no recent travel history to affected countries or regions. She was confirmed to have COVID-19 infection on 3 May, and is currently warded at Tan Tock Seng Hospital.
Prior to hospital admission, she had gone to work as a facilities manager at the National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID).
Case 18583 is a 32 year-old female Singapore Citizen who has no recent travel history to affected countries or regions. She was confirmed to have COVID-19 infection on 3 May, and is currently warded at Changi General Hospital (CGH).
Prior to hospital admission, she had been at work for a few hours as a doctor at CGH.
Case 18669 is a 52 year-old female Singapore Citizen who has no recent travel history to affected countries or regions. She was confirmed to have COVID-19 infection on 4 May, and is currently warded at NCID.
Prior to hospital admission, she had gone to work as a healthcare volunteer at the community care facility at Singapore EXPO.
Update on condition of confirmed cases
49 more cases of COVID-19 infection have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities.
In all, 1,457 have fully recovered from the infection and have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities.
There are currently 1,491 confirmed cases who are still in hospital. Of these, most are stable or improving, and 25 are in critical condition in the intensive care unit.
15,812 are isolated and cared for at community facilities. These are those who have mild symptoms, or are clinically well but still test positive for COVID-19.
18 have passed away from complications due to COVID-19 infection.
Numbers are not coming down
Professor Dale Fisher, a senior consultant at the Division of Infectious Diseases in National University Hospital (NUH), told CNA in an interview last Friday that Singapore is still in the very early stages of sorting out the pandemic as efforts are ramping up.
“The numbers are not really coming down, it is a function of the test,” said Prof Fisher, who also chairs the Singapore National Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) committee.
“For the dormitories, the positivity rate is so high, you get to the point where you don’t need to test any more.
“But let’s just say if you have a clinical respiratory illness … Then you almost certainly have COVID. So we put those into isolation straight away,” he added.
As for whether the figures from the dormitories will be eventually included in the country’s tally, he said: “We should aim to have those clinical diagnoses eventually included in the numbers. I think that honesty is important. And that’s why it will be the case.”
“But there will be a lag because it is a different reporting mechanism,” said Prof Fisher. “Most we still want to test, but it does mean we can focus our efforts on those with less prevalence.”
MOH in its press statement on 27 April noted that Singapore is now able to conduct more than 8,000 tests per day from an average of 2,900 tests per day in early April.
