Bukit Merah View market cluster grows to 73 cases

SINGAPORE — The Ministry of Health (MOH) on Sunday (20 June) confirmed 11 new COVID-19 cases in Singapore, taking the country's total case count to 62,414.

Nine are local cases in the community. Of them, three – out of four linked cases – were added to the 115 Bukit Merah View market and food centre cluster, which now has 73 infections.

Sunday marks the 56th consecutive day with local cases reported.

The two remaining cases are imported – a returning Singaporean from Saudi Arabia as well as a work permit holder who arrived from Indonesia and is a foreign domestic worker.

"Amongst the new cases today, four are asymptomatic, and were detected from our proactive screening and surveillance, while seven were symptomatic," said the MOH.

The five unlinked cases in the community are:

• an 83-year-old Singaporean woman who is a retiree

• an 80-year-old Singaporean woman who is a retiree; conveyed to Singapore General Hospital for an unrelated medical condition on 19 June

• a 22-year-old Malaysian woman who works as a dental assistant at Q&M Dental Surgery at Redhill MRT station (fully vaccinated)

• a 24-year-old Singaporean man who works as a financial consultant with Prudential

• a 52-year-old Singaporean man who works as an engineer at the Housing and Development Board (received first dose of vaccine)

Separately, an 81-year-old Singaporean woman who is a retiree was identified as linked to the 83-year-old woman – her family member and household contact – but is not part of any active COVID-19 cluster. The fully-vaccinated woman, who had visited 115 and 116 Bukit Merah View, has tested preliminarily positive for the Delta variant and is pending further confirmatory tests.

The MOH also announced the closure of four clusters – Pacific Law Corporation, "Case 63414", "Case 63487", and "Case 63516" – as there have been no cases linked to them for the past two incubation periods, or 28 days.

There are currently 37 active COVID-19 clusters in Singapore.

The ministry noted that the number of new cases in the community has increased from 36 in the week before to 108 in the past week. The number of unlinked cases in the community has also increased from 15 in the week before to 21 in the past week.

Bukit Merah View market cluster: 3 new cases, 73 in total

The cluster was first linked to a 74-year-old Singaporean man who works at a sundry store at the market. The fully-vaccinated man was confirmed to have COVID-19 on 9 June.

All three new cases had been quarantined earlier:

• a 63-year-old Singaporean woman who works as a warehouse assistant at SMC Manufacturing Singapore

• an 86-year-old Singaporean man who is a retiree and had visited 115 and 116 Bukit Merah View

• a 35-year-old Vietnamese man who works as a stall assistant at Tiong Bahru Yong Tao Hu at 56 Eng Hoon Street

99% of total cases have recovered, 1 in ICU

With 19 more patients discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities on Sunday, 62,042 cases – or 99.4 per cent of the total – have fully recovered from the infection.

Most of the 142 hospitalised cases are stable or improving, while one of them is in critical condition in the intensive care unit.

A total of 196 patients – with mild symptoms or are clinically well but still test positive – are isolated and cared for at community facilities.

Apart from the 34 patients who have died from COVID-19 complications, 15 others who tested positive for the virus were determined to have died from unrelated causes, including three whose deaths were attributed to a heart attack and another four, whose deaths were attributed to coronary heart disease.

Among the 138 confirmed cases reported from 14 to 20 June, 48 cases have tested positive for their serology tests, 77 have tested negative, and 13 serology test results are pending.

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