COVID-19: Singapore reports 226 new cases, including prison inmate

By Massita Ahmad

SINGAPORE, Aug 3 -- Singapore has preliminarily reported 226 new cases of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, with one case in a community involving a prison inmate.

The republic’s Ministry of Health (MOH), in its brief noon data released here, said the inmate was on short-term visit pass, who had arrived in Singapore before the implementation of border measures.

The MOH said he had been segregated from the general inmate population since his admission to Changi Prison Complex on July 30.

According to the ministry, he was tested as part of the Singapore Prison Service’s proactive screening of newly admitted inmates. 

As for imported cases, nine were reported with all placed on Stay-Home Notice upon arrival in Singapore, while the rest of today's cases were foreign workers residing in dormitories.

With the new cases, the total tally for the republic now stands at 53,051 cases. 

In its full data released late Sunday, Singapore classified 709 of reported cases as imported, 2,181 as community cases and 49,935 as dorm residents.

As at noon yesterday, 46,926 or about 89 per cent of the total cases have fully recovered from the infection and been discharged from hospitals or community care facilities.

There were 109 confirmed cases still in hospital.

Of these, most were stable or improving, and none was in the intensive care unit.

A total of 5,763 patients with mild symptoms or clinically well but still tested positive for COVID-19 have been isolated and are being cared for at community facilities.

To date, 27 people have died from complications due to COVID-19 infection here.

No new cluster was identified yesterday.

-- BERNAMA