Record-High of 120 New COVID-19 Cases in S’pore Today (5 Apr): Almost All Are Local Cases With Majority from Dormitories

That’s it: we’ve just hit the 100 mark today.

And the worrying fact is that most of them are locally transmitted cases, with just 4 imported cases.

Unlike a month ago whereby clusters were mainly churches, this time, we’ve a new problem: dormitories.

Record-High of 120 New COVID-19 Cases in S’pore Today (5 Apr): Almost All Are Local Cases With Majority from Dormitories

Of the 120 new cases, 116 of them are local infections.

Details of the exact infections, like how many were linked to previously confirmed cases or unlinked, are not out yet, but during a press conference by the task force fighting COVID-19, it’s revealed that 76 of them are long-term pass holders, with “significant numbers” related to the S11 Dormitory in Punggol and Westlite Toh Guan dormitory near Jurong East.

Before today, the S11 Dormitory has 41 confirmed cases while Westlite Toh Guan dormitory has 18 confirmed cases.

Given the high number of cases in dormitories, new measures are now being implemented for dormitories.

2 Dormitories Gazetted as Isolation Areas

For a start, the above-mentioned dormitories would be declared as isolation areas. This means that for the two dormitories, in which the S11 has 13,000 residents and Westlite has 6,800, people staying there would be isolated and would not be able to go to work.

Food and essential supplies will be sent to them, and they’ll still be paid as per usual as the authorities would give $100 daily quarantine allowance to employers for each worker since they’re essentially considered to be under “quarantine”.

Other dormitories are advised to follow strict safe-distancing measures and maintain high standards of hygiene and cleanliness.

Minister for National Development Mr Lawrence Wong highlighted that it’s “not an issue of targeting a particular group, they are not of higher risk.

“The issue we have here is foreign worker dorms have now emerged as a cluster of infection, a new vector for transmission, despite the precautions we have taken.”

In addition, if necessary, the two dormitories might not be the only two affected. Health Minister Gan Kim Yong said, “We may not stop at these two dorms. We are continuing to monitor the situation and if need be, we will declare additional dorms as isolation areas when necessary…We will continue to monitor the situation and decide as we go along.”

Start Circuit Breaker Measures Now

All in all, we now have a total of 1,309. Now, remember: we just hit 1,000 in the beginning of this month.

This is why Mr Gan encouraged us to start the circuit breaker measures right now instead of from Tuesday onwards, which is the official date that it should commerce.

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He said, “I would like to encourage Singaporeans not to wait until tomorrow night because maximum distancing should start right now.

“If you don’t have to go out, please stay at home. If you need to go out, avoid going to places that you expect to have close contact with many people and … take the necessary precautions … then go home as soon as possible.”

In other words, if you want to help, you can do so right now by staying at home.

You can do your part as a responsible citizen through helping out in contact tracing by downloading the TraceTogether app.

In the meantime, keep yourself updated by bookmarking MOH’s website here and registering for the Gov.sg’s WhatsApp service here.