SINGAPORE, 20 April 2020:
Singapore’s Ministry of Health (MoH) has preliminarily confirmed an additional 1,426 cases of Covid-19 infections – the vast majority of whom are Work Permit holders residing in foreign worker dormitories.
“The main increase today continues to be for Work Permit holders residing in dormitories, where we are picking up many more cases because of extensive testing. These are not new infections as the workers are staying in their rooms and many have not reported sick.
“But when the teams go in to test them, many turn out to be positive. Most of these cases have a mild illness and are being monitored in the community isolation facilities or general ward of our hospitals. None of them is in the intensive care unit.”
MoH said 16 cases are Singaporeans/Permanent Residents – with the latest daily additions bringing the island-state’s tally so far to 8,014 – making it the largest coronavirus infection hotspot in Southeast Asian as of now.
This tally has surged far past Philippines, which reported 200 new cases today for a total of 6,459 and 19 new deaths raising total fatalities to 428.
The death toll due to Covid-19 in Indonesia has risen to 590, with eight deaths occurred within the last 24 hours. Indonesian government’s spokesman on Covid-19, Achmad Yurianto, said the number of positive cases in the republic had also risen to 6,760.
“Between 12 noon yesterday and 12 noon today, eight more deaths and 185 new positive cases were recorded.” Jakarta Province recorded the highest overall fatalities at 287, followed by West Java (62), East Java (56) and the remaining in other Indonesia provinces.
In its bid to halt the spread of Covid-19, Thailand’s capital Bangkok has extended a temporary alcohol sales ban until the end of this month.
Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) imposed a temporary alcohol sales ban from April 10 to midnight today to prevent social gatherings, especially during Thais New Year’s Songkran festival last week.
Despite the Covid-19 situation in the kingdom continuing to improve with low numbers of new Covid-19 cases, Bangkok governor Aswin Kwanmuang said the BMA Communicable Disease Committee agreed an extension is necessary.
“The extension will effectively curb the spread of Covid-19 in Bangkok and bringing the situation under control,” he said in a statement today.
Bangkok has recorded the highest number of Covid-19, with 1,440 of 2,792 cumulative cases reported in the kingdom since the outbreak in January.
Today, Thailand reported 27 new Covid-19 cases and no new fatalities for the third consecutive day – bringing the tally of positive cases to 2,792 with the number of casualties remaining at 47.
It is the lowest number of daily infection recorded since March 14. Thailand recorded the highest daily increase -188 confirmed cases on March 22.
Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration (CCSA) spokesman Thaweesilp Wissanuyothin said to date, a total of 1,999 patients have recovered and returned home.
“A total of 142, 589 samples have been tested for Covid-19 in the kingdom, since February. In April, an average of 3,000 samples were tested per day in the kingdom with detection rate between 1.41% and 3.82%,” he said at the daily briefing.
He said 35 out of 77 provinces reported no new cases of Covid-19 in the last 14 days.
Meanwhile, Thaweesilp said about 9,000 Thais in 144 countries have registered with Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to return home after April 30.
“They must obtain fit-to-fly documents and a 14-day quarantine at state facilities is compulsory. They must return home in stages.” The Interior Ministry reported there are 796 temporary quarantine facilities nationwide.
– Bernama