News

S’pore Reports 2 More COVID-19 Deaths; Bugis Junction Cluster Now Has 61 Cases

2021-08-26 , 9:45 am

Earlier this week, Health Minister Ong Ye Kung explained that the recent spate of COVID-19 fatalities involved cases whose infections were detected in early Aug, when our vaccination rate was much lower.

Unfortunately, it seems that it’ll take some time before those infections clear up.

Two COVID-19 deaths were reported yesterday, along with over a hundred new locally transmitted infections.

Here are the details:

Man & Woman Die From COVID-19 Complications; 15 Fatalities Now Reported in Aug

An elderly man and woman have passed away from COVID-19 complications, the Ministry of Health (MOH) said in its report.

The 86-year-old man was admitted to Tan Tock Seng Hospital for an unrelated medical condition on 1 July and tested negative for COVID-19 multiple times.

Another test taken on 28 July came back positive for COVID-19 infection.

He succumbed to the disease on Tuesday (24 Aug).

He was partially vaccinated and had a history of cancer, cardiomyopathy, chronic kidney disease, hypertension, and hyperlipidaemia.

The 95-year-old woman, who was not vaccinated, developed symptoms on 5 Aug and tested positive for COVID-19 on 9 Aug after being admitted to the National Centre for Infectious Diseases.

She died from COVID-19 complications yesterday (25 Aug). She had a history of Alzheimer’s disease.

These two fatalities bring the death toll in August to 15. In total, 52 people here have died from COVID-19.

118 New Locally Transmitted Cases

118 new locally transmitted COVID-19 infections were reported yesterday, of whom 29 were unlinked.

This was Singapore’s highest daily case count for local infections since 30 Jul, when 131 cases were reported.

There were also two imported cases, both of whom had already been placed on Stay-Home Notice (SHN) or isolated upon arrival in Singapore.

No New Clusters; Bugis Junction Cluster Grows to 61

While there were no new clusters, four existing clusters had more infections linked to them.

The North Coast Lodge dormitory cluster now has 112 infections, after 26 more cases were added to it.

38 more infections were liked to the Bugis Junction cluster, which now has 61 infections.

10 new cases were added to the cluster at Selarang Halfway House, taking its total to 19.

One new case was also linked to the Case 68238 cluster, which now has five cases.

Safety Measures

All staff members from affected shops at Bugis Junction, along with their close contacts, will be quarantined, MOH said earlier.

Free COVID-19 testing will also be extended to members of the public who had visited the mall between 17 Aug and 24 Aug.

The BHG department store in Bugis Junction will also be closed for deep cleaning until 30 Aug.

Similarly, all staff members of Selarang Halfway House and residents of the affected block have undergone swab tests.

All close contacts of cases and supervisees living in the block will also be placed on quarantine.

350 Cases in Hospital; 7 in ICU

At the moment, there are 350 COVID-19 cases in hospital, most of whom are well and under observation.

19 severe cases require oxygen supplementation while seven are in critical condition in the intensive care unit.

Of these 26 cases, 21 are patients above the age of 60. Only four of them are fully vaccinated.

As MOH continues to emphasise, the evidence shows that nearly all vaccinated individuals do not suffer serious disease when infected, unless if they had underlying medical conditions that made them more susceptible.

Currently, 78% of our population has been vaccinated, with 82% having received at least one dose.

Understand the importance of vaccination here: