On Friday, Apr. 17, the Ministry of Health (MOH) announced 623 new cases of Covid-19 in Singapore, bringing the total number of cases in the country to 5,050.

558 of these new cases are work permit holders living in dormitories, said the ministry.

MOH noted that most of these cases have a mild illness and are being monitored in community isolation facilities or the general ward of the hospitals.

Further epidemiological investigations and contact tracing have uncovered links between previously announced and new cases, including four new clusters.

Three of these four clusters are foreign worker dormitories.

New clusters

According to the MOH's situation report on Apr. 16, there were 22 clusters linked to dormitories.

Including these three new clusters, this brings the total number of dormitory clusters to 25.

The new clusters announced on Apr. 17 are located at Tuas South Dormitory, Avery Lodge Dormitory, and Jurong Penjuru Dormitory.

Six of the earlier confirmed cases (Cases 1427, 1456, 2114, 2733, 3943 and 3971) have been linked to a new cluster at Tuas South Dormitory, located at 1 Tuas South Street 12.

Six of the earlier confirmed cases (Cases 1204, 1324, 3369, 3880, 3981 and 3986) have now been linked to a new cluster at Avery Lodge Dormitory, located at 2D Jalan Papan.

Five of the newly confirmed cases are linked to 11 previous cases (Cases 3314, 3372, 3558, 3559, 3560, 3675, 4174 ,4375, 4378, 4233, 4234, 4587 4588 4630 4631 and 4415), forming a new cluster at Jurong Penjuru Dormitory, located at 58 Penjuru Place.

Eight of the newly confirmed cases are linked to eight previous cases (Cases 2488, 2599, 2787, 2985, 2992, 3108, 3938, 4384, 4594, 4681, 4592, 4806, 4744, 4808, 4924 and 4927), forming a new cluster at 4 Sungei Kadut Street 2.

Affected dormitories

This announcement comes one day after three more dormitories — Shaw Lodge Dormitory, North Coast Lodge, and Tuas View Dormitory — were gazetted as isolation areas on Apr. 16.

There are currently 12 purpose-built dormitories, out of the 43 in Singapore, gazetted as isolation areas.

Top image via Google Maps.