Jurong Point Popular bookstore among places visited by infectious coronavirus patients - The Straits Times

SINGAPORE - The Popular bookstore at Jurong Point has been added to the list of public places visited by Covid-19 patients while they were still infectious.

According to the Ministry of Health's (MOH) latest update on Wednesday night (Aug 5), the bookstore was visited by at least one Covid-19 case from 12.05pm to 2.30pm on July 26.

The ministry provides this list of locations that Covid-19 patients visited for more than 30 minutes to get those who were at these places to monitor their health closely for two weeks from the date of their visit.

It has said that close contacts would already have been notified and that there is no need to avoid these places as they would have been cleaned if needed.

The full list can be found on MOH's website.

There were 908 new coronavirus cases confirmed as of Wednesday noon, one of the highest number of daily cases recorded since cases exceeded 1,000 in April.

Among these, 903 were migrant workers in dormitories who are among the final batch of workers being cleared of the coronavirus, MOH said.

They come from dormitories with a relatively high prevalence of Covid-19 and were tested when they were already in isolation or in quarantine. Many were asymptomatic.

MOH added that all dormitories should be cleared by Friday, with the exception of a few blocks in dormitories that serve as quarantine facilities. These currently house about 9,700 workers in quarantine.

"We expect the daily case counts to be high for the coming days, before tapering down thereafter as the inter-agency task force completes the dormitory clearance," the ministry said.

The remaining five cases are four imported patients and a case in the community.

MOH said earlier in the day that there were four cases in the community, but three have been re-classified after contact tracing.

The sole community case is a 26-year-old Bangladeshi work permit holder who was picked up as a result of the ministry's proactive screening of those working in essential services.

He was asymptomatic.

Further tests showed that he is no longer infectious and was likely to have been infected in the past.

All four imported cases arrived in Singapore from India on July 22 and were already serving mandatory stay-home notices at dedicated facilities when they were tested.

Three are dependant's pass holders - aged one, four and six - while one is a short-term visit pass holder whose application to enter Singapore was approved, as she is an elderly woman whose family members are Singapore residents, MOH said.

Singapore's total cases now stand at 54,254.

The average number of new daily community cases during a week has decreased from four two weeks ago to two in the past week. The average unlinked community cases per day has fallen from two to one over the same period.

With 314 cases discharged on Wednesday, 47,753 patients have fully recovered from the disease.

A total of 126 patients remain in hospital, including one in the intensive care unit, while 6,333 are recuperating in community facilities.

Singapore has had 27 deaths from Covid-19 complications, while 15 who tested positive have died of other causes.