Coronavirus: 2 baby girls among new imported cases in Singapore

SINGAPORE - Two of the three new imported Covid-19 cases announced on Friday (July 17) were baby girls, both aged one, who returned from India.

One is a dependant's pass holder and the other is a long-term pass holder.

The first baby arrived in Singapore on Wednesday and showed symptoms on Thursday, while the second girl arrived here on June 26 and was asymptomatic.

Both tested positive on Friday.

The third imported patient was a Singaporean who returned from the Philippines on July 6.

All the imported patients were placed on 14-day stay-home notices upon arrival in Singapore, and were tested while serving their notices.

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On Friday, MOH also announced Singapore's 15th case of a patient who tested positive for the coronavirus but died from other causes.

The 72-year-old Singaporean woman, who was one of nine new community cases announced on Friday, died on Wednesday.

The woman was taken to the National University Hospital's emergency department on that day for reasons not related to Covid-19. She had a history of diabetes.

She was confirmed to be Covid-19 positive on Thursday after her death. The cause of death was intracerebral haemorrhage, said MOH.

The eight other cases in the community announced comprise five Singaporeans, two work pass holders and one work permit holder. All were linked to previous cases or clusters. Of these, four cases were identified as contacts of previously confirmed cases, and were quarantined earlier. They were tested during their quarantine.

Another patient was identified from testing individuals working in frontline Covid-19 operations.

The remaining three community cases were swabbed under enhanced community testing to test all individuals aged 13 and above who are diagnosed with acute respiratory infection when they first visit a doctor.

Migrant workers living in dormitories made up 315 of the 327 new Covid-19 cases on Friday. The new cases take Singapore's total to 47,453.

Meanwhile, department store BHG's outlet in Lot One Shoppers' Mall, Jem and Westgate were newly added to a list of places visited by Covid-19 patients while they were still infectious.

Resorts World Sentosa's casino and Sim Lim Square also had new entries on the list, which can be found on MOH's site.

It has said that close contacts would already have been notified and that there is no need to avoid these places as they would have been cleaned if needed.

MOH also announced a new cluster at a construction site at Paya Lebar Quarter Tower 2.

The average number of new daily cases in the community in a week has decreased from 16 cases two weeks ago to 11 in the past week.

The number of unlinked cases in the community in a week has decreased from a daily average of eight cases to six over the same period.

Singapore has had 27 deaths from Covid-19 complications.

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This article was first published in The Straits Times. Permission required for reproduction.