136 new Covid-19 cases in Singapore, including 18 in community and 7 imported

Twelve of the 18 cases in the community are Work Pass holders. ST PHOTO: NG SOR LUAN

SINGAPORE - There are 136 new coronavirus patients confirmed as of Sunday noon (July 5), taking Singapore's total to 44,800.

They include 18 community cases, comprising six Singaporeans or permanent residents, and 12 work pass holders, said the Ministry of Health (MOH) on Sunday.

Of these 18 cases, five were close contacts of earlier cases and had already been placed on quarantine, MOH said.

There are also seven imported cases, all of whom had been placed on stay-home notice (SHN) upon arrival in Singapore.

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

More details will be announced on Sunday night.

On Saturday, MOH gave an update of the cluster at Block 111 Tampines Street 11.

It said that the 116 tests that have been completed so far have all come back negative. It had placed 58 households under active phone surveillance and was facilitating Covid-19 testing for them and their visitors as a precautionary measure after the ministry detected nine confirmed coronavirus cases from two households in the block.

It also announced eight new unlinked community Covid-19 cases on Saturday, including an 82-year-old Singaporean woman who was confirmed to have the virus that day after showing symptoms on Wednesday.

There was also an imported case: An 11-year-old permanent resident who had returned from India on June 21 later tested positive for Covid-19 on Friday.

He was placed on SHN on arrival and had been ferried in a dedicated transport to an SHN facility to start his 14-day isolation. He is asymptomatic and had been tested while serving SHN, said MOH. He is a family member of another imported case, a 35-year-old female permanent resident, which was reported on Friday.

Of the nine community cases on Saturday, there were four Singaporeans, three work pass holders and two work permit holders.

The only linked community case, a 38-year-old male Bangladeshi, was identified as a contact of a previously confirmed case and had been quarantined earlier. He is asymptomatic and was tested during quarantine.

Of the eight unlinked community cases, three were proactively swabbed as they work in essential services, even though two were asymptomatic.

Another case was detected as part of the MOH's proactive screening of individuals deployed to frontline Covid-19 operations.

Epidemiological investigations are ongoing for the remaining four unlinked cases.

The average number of new daily cases in the community during a week has increased from six cases two weeks ago to nine in the past week. The number of unlinked cases in the community during a week has also increased from the daily average of three cases two weeks ago to the daily average of five in the past week.

With 348 cases discharged on Saturday, 40,105 patients have fully recovered from the disease.

A total of 204 patients remain in hospital, including two in the intensive care unit, while 4,317 are recuperating in community facilities.

Singapore has had 26 deaths from Covid-19 complications, while 12 who tested positive have died of other causes.

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