Covid-19: Ren Ci Community Hospital nurse and Kranji Lodge 1 worker among 8 community cases on Wednesday

[UPDATE 11.20 PM]

A total of 570 new coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Singapore today (May 20), but there is an increase in the number of community cases from yesterday.

In a statement by the Ministry of Health (MOH), they announced that of the new cases, eight are community cases while the remaining cases come from Work Permit holders living in dormitories.

The eight community cases consist of two Singaporeans/Permanent Residents, one Work Pass holder and five Work Permit holders.

A public healthcare staff is one of the community cases and she is a 30 year-old female Filipino national Work Pass holder who has no recent travel history to affected countries or regions. She was confirmed to have Covid-19 infection on May 19, and is currently warded at the National Centre for Infectious Diseases.

She is employed as a nurse at Ren Ci Community Hospital but had not gone to work since onset of symptoms.

Another community case identified is a 57-year-old Singaporean male who went to work at Kranji Lodge 1 after developing symptoms. Kranji Lodge 1 is an existing cluster with 511 confirmed cases.

Of the five cases involving Work Permit holders, two have been identified as contacts of earlier confirmed cases, and are quarantined.

MOH also announced that they have updated their definition of community cases to include all cases, including among Work Permit holders, who are detected outside of the dormitories.

They were previously tracking Work Permit holders living outside the dormitories as a separate category and put a large number of them on Stay Home Notices (SHN). The SHN for these workers has since expired.

The number of new cases in the community has decreased, from an average of eight cases per day in the week before to an average of five per day in the past week. The number of unlinked cases in the community has also decreased, from an average of three per day in the week before, to an average of two per day in the past week.

MOH continues to pick up more cases among Work Permit holders residing in dormitories, including in factory-converted dormitories, because of extensive testing in these premises, as part of their process to verify and test the status of all workers.

99 per cent of the new cases are linked to known clusters, while the rest are pending contact tracing.

MOH added that they have closed the cluster at Project Glory (50 Market Street) as there have been no more cases linked to it in the past 28 days.

However, there are two new clusters at 29 Senoko South Road and 144 Tagore Lane.

Of the 954 cases who are still in the hospital, most are stable and improving. 11 are in critical condition, while 17,181 cases who are clinically well but still test positive for Covid-19 are isolated and cared for at community facilities.

MOH also announced that 842 more cases of Covid-19 infection have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities. In all, 11,207 have fully recovered from the infection and have been discharged from hospitals or community care facilities.

This brings the total number of cases to 29,364, with 11,207 patients discharged and 22 deaths.

For the latest updates on the coronavirus, visit here.

bryanlim@asiaone.com