Two Indians among 70 new COVID-19 cases reported in Singapore

Team Udayavani, Mar 29, 2020, 7:40 AM IST

Singapore: Two Indians were among the 70 new confirmed novel coronavirus cases reported in Singapore on Saturday, taking the total number of infections in the country to 802, according to the Ministry of Health.

Out of the fresh cases, 41 are imported with travel history to Europe, North America, ASEAN and other parts of Asia.

Two Indian nationals, a 21-year old male and a 55-year old female, were among the confirmed coronavirus patients in the ministry’s Saturday list.

The latest cases brings the total number of COVID-19 infections in the city-state to 802, it said.

Of the 420 confirmed cases who are still in hospital, most are stable or improving. Nineteen are in critical condition.

Fifteen more patients were discharged from hospital, taking the total number of recoveries from disease to 198.

A 1-year-old Singaporean girl is among the 41 imported cases. She has a travel history to the UK and France.

While more links have been made to previous cases or clusters, 67 locally transmitted cases still remain unlinked.

Contact tracing is under way for these cases, the ministry said.

On Saturday, the authorities urged people in a WhatsApp message to stay at home and only visit shopping malls for essentials like food.

This comes a day after large crowds were seen outside malls, as mall operators implemented stricter safe-distancing measures to contain the spread of COVID-19, reported Channel News Asia.

The government also called on foreign workers and foreign domestic workers to stay inside on their rest days and reminded people to stay 1mtr away from each other, avoid gathering at public spaces and visiting crowded areas.

Stiffer regulations that came into effect on Thursday introduced jail terms and fines for individuals, event organisers and owners of premises who flout safe-distancing measures, as stipulated by the COVID-19 multi-ministry taskforce.

Twenty people have been arrested over a one-and-a-half month period for their alleged involvement in e-commerce scams involving products such as masks and hand sanitisers, according to media reports.

Victims have lost more than SGD 440,000 in the scams, which have been on the rise on digital platforms such as Carousell and Facebook Marketplace as Singaporeans sought some of these essential products.

The city-state authorities have also told all long-term pass holders to seek an entry approval before entering or returning to Singapore from Sunday at 11.59pm.

The additional precautionary measures are in view of the risk of imported COVID-19 cases into Singapore, said the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA), Ministry of Education (MOE) and Ministry of Manpower (MOM).