In a sad recent trend: another day, another double-digit report of community cases.
As of 12pm today (3 May), the Ministry of Health (MOH) has preliminarily confirmed 17 new cases of COVID-19 infection.
Ten are community cases, and the remaining seven are imported. There are no new dorm cases.
Eight out of the ten community cases are linked to the Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH) cluster.
This brings the total number of cases in Singapore to 61,235.
Overall, the number of new cases in the community has increased from 10 cases in the week before to 51 cases in the past week. The number of unlinked cases in the community has also increased from 3 cases in the week before to 11 cases in the past week.
Out of the 14 Community Cases Reported on 2 May, 13 Are Linked to Active Clusters
14 community cases were reported yesterday (2 May), of which 13 were linked to active COVID-19 clusters.
11 were linked to the Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH) cluster, one to the community care facility cluster in Tuas, and another to the cluster at Changi Airport.
The last case—a 37-year-old helper from India—is unlinked.
Seven of the 11 new cases in the TTSH cluster are aged between 60 and 98. One is a physiotherapist and three are people who visited Ward 9D, where most of the infections were discovered.
Five of them had already been discharged and sent home, but were later found to have the virus.
TTSH has completed the testing of all inpatients in its main wards last Friday (30 Apr) and, thankfully, the results are all negative.
The hospital will also be testing all 12,000 staff at the facility, and has already swabbed 7,000 of them. Those working in clinical areas will be tested first.
The COVID-19 case linked to the community care facility cluster in Tuas is a 53-year-old Malaysian who is a household contact of two previous cases.
She works as a hairstylist at Me To Do Studio. She was placed on quarantine on 29 April and taken to a dedicated facility the next day.
She then developed a sore throat on Saturday (1 May) and later tested positive for COVID-19. Her serology test result is negative, meaning this is likely a fresh infection.
The last community case is a 32-year-old Singaporean Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) officer deployed at the Home Team Academy.
He was last at work on 26 April and was placed on quarantine the next day. When he was tested for COVID-19, his result came back negative.
However, when he was tested again two days later, his result was positive.
The man had already completed his vaccination regimen, receiving his second dose on 17 February.
401 Active Cases
There are currently 126 confirmed cases who are still in hospital. Of these, most are stable or improving, and none is in the intensive care unit.
275 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.
31 have passed away from complications due to COVID-19 infection.
Feature Image: kandl stock / Shutterstock.com (Image for illustration purpose only)
