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Health Minister Gan Kim Yong has confirmed the first two Covid-19 deaths in Singapore on March 21 morning.

Gan said that he was "deeply saddened by their passing", and their thoughts are with their families during this difficult time.

Gan has also asked NCID to render all assistance as necessary to their family members.

First Death

The first patient was a 75-year old female Singaporean.

She was admitted to the National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID) on Feb. 23 for pneumonia and was confirmed to have Covid-19 infection on the same day.

She developed serious complications and eventually succumbed to the infection after 26 days in the ICU on Mar. 21 at 7.52am. She has a history of chronic heart disease and hypertension.

Second Death

The second patient was a 64-year old male Indonesian national.

He developed serious complications and eventually succumbed to the infection after nine days in the ICU on 21. March at 10.15am.

Prior to his arrival in Singapore on Mar.13, he had been hospitalised in Indonesia for pneumonia and had a history of heart disease.

Full transcript of Gan's doorstop: 'Deeply Saddened by their passing'

Gan said that he was "deeply saddened by their passing", and their thoughts are with their families during this difficult time.

He said,

Two patients in our National Centre for Infectious Diseases have passed away this morning due to complications arising from Covid-19 infection, despite the best efforts of our medical team to care for them. Our thoughts are with their families and their loved ones during these difficult moments. I have asked NCID to render all assistance as necessary to their family members.

The first patient has an underlying history of heart diseases as well as hypertension. She developed serious complications and eventually succumbed to the disease after 26 days in the ICU. The second patient was admitted to ICU in critical condition after arriving from Indonesia. He had an underlying history of heart disease and also eventually succumbed to the disease after 9 days in the ICU. While we all know that there will be fatalities in Covid-19 patients, we are deeply saddened by their passing.

I know Singaporeans will be worried and anxious. We must take courage and not give in to our fears. We have announced a series of safe distancing measures yesterday and we must all take the necessary precautious to keep ourselves and our families safe. We must stay united, work together, support one another, look out for each other. This way by staying together we will be able to prevail and overcome the Covid-19 infection.

There are currently 385 Covid-19 cases in Singapore as of March 20.

16 were in critical condition in the intensive care unit as of March 20.

Top photo by Julia.