10 new Covid-19 cases in Singapore, including one in the community

[SINGAPORE] There were 10 new coronavirus cases confirmed at noon on Monday, taking Singapore's total to 59,879.

There is one community case, while the other nine are imported cases who had already been placed on stay-home notices on arrival in Singapore, said the Ministry of Health (MOH).

More details will be announced on Monday night.

On Sunday, MOH announced that a Malaysian truck driver who tested positive for Covid-19 last Thursday is being investigated for visiting the Resorts World Sentosa Casino nine days earlier on a previous trip.

The freelance deliveryman had tested negative at the checkpoint on Feb 8, and visited the casino on Feb 9, before departing for Malaysia on the same day.

He was denied entry to Singapore on Thursday after his antigen rapid test at Woodlands Checkpoint returned a positive result, said MOH.

A NEWSLETTER FOR YOU

Friday, 8.30 am

Asean Business

Business insights centering on South-east Asia's fast-growing economies.

Sign Up

His polymerase chain reaction test also came back positive for Covid-19 infection on Friday.

"Malaysian truck drivers are not allowed to mingle in the community other than for delivery purposes and are not to stay overnight. Investigations are ongoing to assess if there had been any breach of the relevant prevailing measures," said MOH.

It added: "We will take all the necessary public health actions as a precautionary measure, including placing all identified close contacts on quarantine." The driver has not been included in Singapore's case count since he was not allowed entry to Singapore after his positive test.

There were 11 Covid-19 cases reported on Sunday - all imported and placed on stay-home notice upon arrival here.

Ten were asymptomatic, and were detected from MOH's proactive screening and surveillance.

Two Singaporeans and one permanent resident had returned from India and Nepal.

The others had come from India, the United Arab Emirates, Myanmar, Mexico, Bangladesh and Indonesia.

With 12 patients discharged on Sunday, 59,716 have fully recovered from the virus.

A total of 22 patients remained in hospital, including one in critical condition in intensive care, while 87 were still recovering in community facilities.

Singapore has had 29 deaths from Covid-19 complications, while 15 who tested positive died of other causes.

Globally, the virus outbreak, which began in December 2019, has infected more than 110 million people. More than 2.4 million people have died.

THE STRAITS TIMES