The Ministry of Health reported 21 new Covid-19 cases in the community on May 17.

Among these, 11 cases remain unlinked, as of May 17 evening.

About 50 new locations have been added to the list of public places visited by Covid-19 cases when they are infectious.

Cases detected through surveillance

Here's a summary of the unlinked cases detected from the community on May 17:

1. National Institute of Education (NIE) student who is also a part-time private tutor, aged 26
2. Retiree, aged 76
3. Administrative personnel at Pacific Law Corporation, aged 57
4. Staff of event company Invade Industry Pte Ltd, aged 22
5. Retail assistant at Alan Photo Pte Ltd located at Funan Mall, aged 28
6. Cleaner at EuHabitat, an employee of Clean Hub Facility Pte Ltd, aged 45
7. Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore employee, aged 47
8. Teacher at Frontier Primary School, aged 37
9. Singapore Polytechnic student, aged 16
10. IT engineer at AbbVie Operations Singapore Pte Ltd, aged 32
11. Full-time National Serviceman, aged 20

The number of new cases in the community, as well as unlinked cases, are both on the rise.

Overall, the number of new cases in the community has increased from 32 cases in the week before to 149 cases in the past week.

The number of unlinked cases in the community has also increased by six-fold from seven cases in the week before to 42 cases in the past week.

While most linked cases were already quarantined before being tested positive for Covid-19, a few were detected through surveillance. Most of them are either the family member or household contact of existing cases.

They include:

• An aviation security officer at Changi Airport Terminal 3, employed by Certis Cisco, aged 49
• A retiree, aged 72
• An unemployed person, aged 34.
• An engineer at 3M Innovation Singapore Pte Ltd, aged 57

Pulau Ubin among new locations visited by infectious cases

About 50 new locations were added on May 17.

These locations were visited by cases in the community during their infectious period in the past 14 days.

A seafood restaurant on offshore island Pulau Ubin, Season Live Seafood, was visited for 45 minutes on May 9, from 12:15pm to 1pm.

Other locations visited include popular malls such as ION Orchard, The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands, Suntec City and JEM.

A temple in Sengkang, Chong Yee Temple, was also visited by Covid-19 case(s) for three hours on May 13, from 3:45pm to 6:45pm.

You can view the full list here.

Current Covid-19 situation is serious, NCID director says

David Lye, director of the Infectious Disease Research and Training Office at the National Centre for Infectious Diseases, warned Singaporeans that the current Covid-19 situation here is likely more dangerous than the situation before Circuit Breaker last year.

Lye said the number of unlinked cases suggests the spread of virus may be "wide and far". In addition, Singapore is also facing a threat from "new mutant strains".

He urged people to form their own "small social bubble", where everyone in that bubble should refrain from socialising with others.

He also suggests to to abide by the Covid-19 rules, such as keeping social gathering to a maximum of two people and putting on face masks when they are not engaging in strenuous exercise in parks.

"We should all do much more beyond what government dictates," he urged in the interest of public safety and health.

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Top image via Google Maps by Daniel Sin