New Covid-19 Clusters at Jurong East Bus Interchange, Homestay Lodge Dormitory, Health News & Top Stories

SINGAPORE – Staff at Jurong East Bus Interchange and Homestay Lodge, a dormitory for foreign workers, formed the two new Covid-19 clusters discovered by the Ministry of Health (MOH) on Saturday, August 28.

Jurong East Bus Interchange, with 14 cases, is the sixth active group involving staff at a bus interchange.

Homestay Lodge, located at Kaki Bukit Avenue 3, has five cases.

They are among 66 active clusters, each with between three and 1,155 infections.

These cases were among the 113 new patients with locally transmitted coronavirus discovered like Saturday noon. Of these, 25 cases were linked to the Bugis Junction cluster.

This brings the total number of cases in the cluster to 176, which was first discovered on Tuesday.

Of the remaining 88 cases, 32 were linked to earlier cases and had already been quarantined.

Another 27 related cases were not in quarantine when they tested positive.

The remaining 29 were unrelated cases.

There were also eight imported cases that were detected and placed on home stay or isolated notice upon arrival in Singapore.

Four cases were detected upon arrival in Singapore, while the other four developed the disease while in isolation or given home stay notice.

In total, there were 121 new cases of Covid-19 in Singapore on Saturday, bringing the country’s total to 67,171.

There are currently 389 hospitalized cases, 16 of which have serious illness requiring supplementation with oxygen. Six are in critical condition in intensive care.

Among the very sick people, 16 are seniors over 60 years old, and among them, 11 are totally unvaccinated or partially vaccinated.

The Department of Health said there is continuing evidence that almost all fully vaccinated individuals do not experience serious illness when infected, unless they have underlying medical conditions that make them more sensitive.

In the past 28 days, the percentage of unvaccinated people who became seriously ill or died is 9.2%, while that of those fully vaccinated is 1.2%, he added.

Overall, the number of new cases in the community rose from 260 cases the previous week to 551 cases last week.

The number of unrelated cases in the community also fell from 82 cases the previous week to 144 cases last week.

As of Friday, 79% of the population had been fully vaccinated, while 83% had received at least one dose.

A total of 8,667,278 doses of Covid-19 vaccines were administered under the national vaccination program, covering 4,500,430 people, including 4,291,659 people who have completed the full vaccination schedule.

In addition, 164,336 doses of other vaccines recognized in the World Health Organization’s emergency use list were administered, covering 85,489 people.

Read the full press release from the Ministry of Health here.