596 New COVID-19 Cases in S’pore Today (19 Apr); S’pore Now Has Highest Number of Cases in Southeast Asia

Lest you didn’t know, the timings of the MOH press releases for new COVID-19 cases have been as irregular as the number of cases since the coronavirus landed on our shores.

Initially, it came in extremely unpredictable timing: from 11pm to 1am to whatnot.

Then it was at about 7 to 8pm.

Soon, it was at 10pm to 11:59pm.

In the last three days, it has been split into two announcements: one in the afternoon whereby only the number would be revealed, and one before the end of the day whereby more details would be revealed.

According to CNA, the reason is due to “significant public interest”.

And today (19 April), the first announcement is out: we have 596 new confirmed cases.

596 New COVID-19 Cases in S’pore Today (19 Apr); Highest Number of Cases in Southeast Asia So Far

Of the 596 new cases, 25 are Singaporeans or Singapore PRs. The majority of the new cases are Work Permit holders residing in foreign worker dormitories.

Yesterday, there were 14 Singaporeans or Singapore PRs who were tested positive.

The total number of cases now stands at 6,588 with 11 deaths.

That would be higher than Indonesia, which had the highest number of cases at 6,248.

However, if you’d have realised, the fatality rate in Singapore is much lower than the current global average of 6.9% (which might not be accurate due to undetected cases) and a WHO estimate on 3 March 2020 of 3.4%.

Singapore’s fatality rate is now at 0.17%.

Globally, there are now over 2.3 million cases, with the USA having the most number of cases at 738,923, followed by Spain at 194,416.

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All Work Permit Holders & S Pass Holders from the Construction Sector to be on Stay-Home Notice From Tomorrow (20 April 2020)

From tomorrow onwards, all work permit and S Pass holders in the construction industry will be on 14-day stay-home notices, and the Dependent Pass holders of these workers would also serve the same notice.

This is to prevent a transmission of the coronavirus at work sites, as the highest number of infected cases have come from this sector and work site transmissions have been a contributing factor.

Nevertheless, most construction works have already been stopped since the Circuit Breaker kicked in, except for those critical and essential ones.

More details of today’s cases would be revealed tonight.