558 new COVID-19 cases in Singapore are from dormitorries used by foreigners

Singapore, Apr 17 () Singapore on Friday said that 558 new coronavirus cases out of 623 reported on Friday were from dormitories used for foreign workers.

"A total of 558 new cases are from foreign worker dormitories, while 37 are work permit holders residing outside dormitories," said the Singapore's Health Ministry.

The total number of coronavirus infections in the country now stands at 5,050, with 11 deaths.

National Development Minister Lawrence Wong has warned Singaporeans, saying a "long fight" with COVID-19 may last "many more months, and likely beyond the end of the year".

"We have to be prepared for future waves of infection and we have to steel ourselves for a long fight," he said in a Facebook post on Friday.

Minister Wong, who is part of the Muti-ministry Task Force to combat COVID-19, said the number of cases among foreign workers should be expected to remain high as authorities continue to actively test and isolate workers who caught the coronavirus.

"The vast majority of the workers are young, and they tend to have very mild cough/cold symptoms that are not picked up by temperature taking alone.

"So, the teams are working doubly hard to sweep through the dorms and test the workers, and this is also the reason why we are seeing such high reported cases every day," he said in a Facebook post on Friday.

"We have to expect the numbers to remain high for some time as we continue this effort to swab, test and isolate the workers," he added.

Of the new cases announced on Friday, 69 per cent are linked to previously identified clusters while the rest are pending contact tracing.

Twenty-seven cases reported on Friday were local from the community.

Twenty-two of the 2,113 confirmed cases in hospital are in critical condition in the intensive care unit. Most of the rest are stable or improving.

A total of 2,218 cases who are clinically well but still test positive for COVID-19 are isolated and cared for at community facilities.

Twenty-five more patients have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities on Friday. In all, 708 have fully recovered from the infection and have been discharged.

Since measures to contain the spread of deadly disease, the "circuit breaker", was implemented on Apr 7, 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.

"The circuit breaker measures appear to have helped, but we still have to monitor carefully the numbers over the next few days," it said.

The Ministry has been detecting new cases by testing "a small sample of patients at our primary care facilities" for COVID-19 as part of an ongoing surveillance programme.