7 of Singapore's 13 new COVID cases in community

SINGAPORE — The Ministry of Health (MOH) on Friday (4 June) reported 13 new COVID-19 cases in Singapore, taking the country's total case count to 62,158.

Of them, seven are local cases in the community, with six linked to previous infections – five have already been placed on quarantine. The remaining six who are imported are two Singaporeans and four permanent residents who returned from India and the United Arab Emirates.

Friday marks the 40th consecutive day with local cases reported – but with the lowest number of community infections since 10 May when three were confirmed.

"Amongst the new cases today, eight are asymptomatic, and were detected from our proactive screening and surveillance, while five were symptomatic," said the MOH.

The ministry also identified two new clusters, bringing the total number of active clusters in Singapore to 46.

The sole unlinked community is a 19-year-old Singaporean boy who is a student at Hwa Chong Institution.

The ministry noted that the number of new cases in the community has increased from 137 in the week before to 139 in the past week. The number of unlinked cases in the community has also increased from 21 in the week before to 23 in the past week.

New 'Case 63892' cluster: 2 new, 3 in total

The cluster is named after the case number of a 68-year-old Singaporean man who works as a manager at Phoenix Entertainment Karaoke TV Music Lounge and was confirmed to have COVID-19 on 30 May.

The two new cases on Friday have been quarantined earlier as they are the man's as well as each others' household contacts:

• a 34-year-old Malaysian man who works as a car groomer at Kok Wang Car Grooming

• a 64-year-old Singaporean woman who works as a cleaner at Phoenix Entertainment KTV Music Lounge (fully vaccinated)

New 'Case 63922' cluster: 2 new, 4 in total

The cluster is named after the case number of a 56-year-old Singaporean woman who is a homemaker and was confirmed to have COVID-19 on 31 May. The two new cases on Friday have been quarantined earlier as they are family members and household contacts of cases in the cluster:

• a 31-year-old Singaporean man who works as a technical officer at Fugro Singapore Land (received first dose of vaccine)

• a 31-year-old Singaporean woman who works as an administrative staff at Citibank

Hong Ye Group cleaners cluster: 2 new cases, 27 in total

The first case linked to the cluster is a 31-year-old Singaporean man who is employed by the company as a cleaner at Changi Business Park. He was confirmed to have COVID-19 on 19 May.

One of the two new additions is a family member and household contact of two previously reported cases in the cluster and was placed on quarantine on 1 June. He is an eight-year-old Singaporean boy who is a Fuhua Primary School student.

The other is a 38-year-old Singaporean man who works as a driver at Wongso Limousine Services, and is deployed by Certis Cisco to convey persons placed on quarantine to government quarantine facilities. At work, he dons full personal protective equipment (PPE), including N95 mask, face shield, gown and gloves.

"He had transported two cases in his vehicle on 23 May who were later confirmed to have COVID-19 infection and were linked to the Hong Ye Group cleaners cluster," the MOH said.

99% of total cases have recovered, 2 in ICU

With 23 more patients discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities on Friday, 61,580 cases – or 99.1 per cent of the total – have fully recovered from the infection.

Most of the 229 hospitalised cases are stable or improving, while two of them are in critical condition in the intensive care unit.

A total of 316 patients – with mild symptoms or are clinically well but still test positive – are isolated and cared for at community facilities.

Apart from the 33 patients who have died from COVID-19 complications, 15 others who tested positive for the virus were determined to have died from unrelated causes, including three whose deaths were attributed to a heart attack and another four, whose deaths were attributed to coronary heart disease.

Among the 188 confirmed cases reported from 29 May to 4 June, 74 cases have tested positive for their serology tests, 99 have tested negative, and 15 serology test results are pending.

In a national televised address on Monday, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said the government should be able to ease COVID-19 safe management restrictions after 13 June if the pandemic situation continues to improve and the number of community cases falls further.

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