Foreign workers living in dormitories continue to make up the majority of new coronavirus patients here, accounting for over 94 per cent of the 1,111 new cases announced yesterday.

A total of 1,050 of the new coronavirus cases are foreign workers living in dorms, as the total number of cases in Singapore crossed the 9,000 mark.

With the updated figures, nearly four in five of all the 9,125 coronavirus cases in Singapore now are foreign workers living in dormitories.

The Ministry of Health (MOH) said that it continues to pick up many more cases in dorms because of extensive testing. Most of these cases have a mild illness and are being monitored in community isolation facilities or the general wards of hospitals, it said. None of them is in intensive care.

The ministry added that these cases from dorms are not new infections as the workers are staying in their rooms and many have not reported sick.

There were also three new coronavirus clusters announced yesterday: The Jovell construction site at Flora Drive in Tampines, Pesko Engineering in Joo Koon Road, and 5 Sungei Kadut Avenue.

The Jovell construction site has 13 patients, Pesko Engineering has 51 patients, and 5 Sungei Kadut Avenue has 15 cases.

The S11 Dormitory @ Punggol continues to be the biggest cluster, with 2,143 patients now linked to it. This cluster alone accounts for about 23 per cent of all 9,125 cases in Singapore.

Of the new coronavirus cases outside of dorms, MOH said 20 are Singaporeans and permanent residents, while eight are work pass or long-term pass holders.

Another 33 new cases are work permit holders who did not live in dorms. There are no new imported cases.

Of the new cases, 66 per cent are linked to known clusters.

MOH also noted yesterday that the number of new cases in the community had fallen to an average of 28 per day in the past week, from an average of 39 cases per day in the week before.

Meanwhile, the number of unlinked cases in the community decreased slightly from an average of 21 cases per day in the week before to an average of 20 cases per day in the past week.

However, the number of new cases among work permit holders outside dorms had shot up to an average of 26 per day in the past week, from an average of 14 cases per day in the week before.

As of yesterday, the prevalence of positive coronavirus cases in the community was 0.022 per cent, but it was 0.056 per cent among the 664,000 workers not living in dorms, and 2.2 per cent among the 323,000 foreign workers residing in dorms, which means 7,127 workers in dorms have been diagnosed as having the coronavirus.

The overall prevalence of the virus in Singapore is now 0.16 per cent.

MOH also said yesterday that 39 more patients were discharged from hospitals and isolation facilities. Since January, 839 patients have fully recovered and been discharged.

Of the 3,593 confirmed cases still in hospital, most are stable or improving, but 27 are in critical condition in intensive care units.

Another 4,682 patients who are clinically well but still test positive for Covid-19 have been isolated and are being cared for at community facilities.

Eleven people have died from complications due to Covid-19.

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