513 COVID-19 Cases Today (25 Jul); No S’porean / S’pore PR Infected But 2 in the Community

We might not need the end of this month to see 50k COVID-19 cases here in Singapore; judging from the new cases in recent days, that should occur by the end of this week instead.

Today, the Ministry of Health (MOH) has preliminarily confirmed an additional 513 cases of COVID-19 infection in Singapore.

This brings the total number of cases here in our little island to 49,888 cases.

Out of today’s cases, 2 are community cases, and both are work pass holders.

There are also 6 imported cases who had been placed on Stay-Home Notice upon arrival in S’pore.

Most of the cases are residents living in dormitories.

On average, based on yesterday’s numbers, the number of new cases in the community has decreased, from an average of 11 cases per day in the week before, to an average of 8 per day in the past week.

The number of unlinked cases in the community has also decreased, from an average of 6 cases per day in the week before, to an average of 4 per day in the past week.

Yesterday, a new cluster in a familiar place was also announced: Bukit Panjang Integrated Transport Hub.

But before you go apeshit and worried about the cluster expanding to a bigly cluster, fret not; you might want to read this 1,600-word article about “Swab Operations”, or just read on.

A New COVID-19 Cluster Has Been Formed in a Bus Interchange: Bukit Panjang Integrated Transport Hub

Unlike days when Circuit Breaker was a box in our house, when people were issued quarantine orders when their colleagues were tested positive, the authorities are now testing everyone in a workplace when it could’ve been a cluster. For example, in Keppel Shipyard and Northpoint City, over 1,300 workers were tested, and 2 were detected through this massive sweep. This excludes close contacts of the positive cases.

And that was what happened to the latest case, a Malaysian who went to work at Ulu Pandan Bus Depot and Bukit Panjang Integrated Transport Hub.

He’s linked to three other cases.

However, he might be a past infection as he had his first symptoms on 1 July 2020, and his serology test turned out positive.

If you’re wondering if he (or someone in his cluster) could’ve been infected by a COVID-19 case who frequent the area, since there’s indeed one case of an infectious person in Bukit Panjang Plaza in the latest list of places that COVID-19 patients have been to (it could be one of them, though), fret not.

The authorities have also conducted swab operation to test individuals at retail premises frequented by multiple positive cases. MOH recently tested close to 60 staff of Sheng Siong supermarket at New World Centre and over 40 staff at Haniffa supermarket at Dunlop Street. None turned out positive.

In the meantime, you can download the TraceTogether app to help fight COVID-19. If you’re still worried about privacy, then watch this video (and also subscribe to our YouTube channel, please?):