95-year-old citizen becomes 11th Covid-19 fatality in S’pore; 4 new clusters at foreign worker dorms

SINGAPORE — An 11th person has died due to complications from Covid-19 — a 95-year-old Singaporean man identified as Case 3145.

He died on Friday (April 17), after being diagnosed to have the infection on April 13.

“Raffles Hospital has reached out to his family and is extending assistance to them,” the Ministry of Health (MOH) said on Friday.

Four new clusters of Covid-19 were also identified by the MOH: Tuas South Dormitory at 1 Tuas South Street 12, Avery Lodge Dormitory at 2D Jalan Papan, Jurong Penjuru Dormitory at 58 Penjuru Place and 4 Sungei Kadut Street 2.

Earlier on Friday, MOH announced 623 new cases of Covid-19. This takes the total number of infections in Singapore to 5,050.

In its media statement, MOH said that one of the cases is an imported case “who is serving stay-home notice”.

Of the remaining cases, 27 are cases in the community: Twenty-two of them are Singaporeans, four are work pass holders while one is a visitor.

MOH noted that it has been 11 days since the circuit breaker was implemented.

“The number of new cases in the community has decreased, from an average of 40 cases per day in the week before, to an average of 32 per day in the past week,” the ministry said.

It added that while the circuit breaker measures “appear to have helped… we still have to monitor carefully the numbers over the next few days”.

“We are particularly concerned that it is increasingly difficult to link the new cases and identify the source of infection. In fact, the number of unlinked cases in the community has increased slightly, from an average of 19 cases per day in the week before, to an average of 22 per day in the past week,” MOH said.

It added: “We have an ongoing surveillance programme, where a small sample of patients at our primary care facilities are tested for Covid-19 infections. We have picked up some cases through these tests, which is an indication of undetected cases in the community.”

MOH said that 37 cases are work permit holders residing outside the dormitories, while 558 new infections are work permit holders living in the foreign worker dormitories.

“The main increase today continues to be for work permit holders residing in dormitories, in line with our continued efforts to actively test and isolate the infected workers,” MOH said.

The ministry added: “Most of these cases have a mild illness and are being monitored in the community isolation facilities or general ward of our hospitals. The cases are generally mild, and none of them is in the intensive care unit.”

Of the cases in the dormitory, MOH said that 144 more cases have been linked to the S-11 Dormitory in Punggol, bringing the total number of cases there to 1,123.

In all, the health ministry said that 708 patients have fully recovered from the infection and have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities, including the 25 on Friday.

Of the 2,113 confirmed cases who are still in hospital, most are stable or improving.

Twenty-two are in critical condition in the intensive care unit.

MOH added that 2,218 cases who are clinically well but still test positive for Covid-19 are isolated and cared for at community facilities.

The MOH also highlighted an infection from the public healthcare sector: A 34-year-old Malaysian woman who had been in Malaysia from Jan 29 to April 8.

The woman — identified as Case 5018 — reported an onset of symptoms on April 16, and subsequent test results confirmed Covid-19 infection the next day.

She is currently warded at the National Centre for Infectious Diseases.

She is employed as a nurse at Bright Vision Hospital but had not gone to work since the onset of symptoms as she had been on stay-home notice.