COVID-19: SINGAPORE- 16th death, 60-year-old man.

SINGAPORE – A 60-year-old male Singaporean died on Friday (May 1) from complications due to Covid-19 infection, bringing the total deaths here to 16.

The man was confirmed to have the coronavirus on April 13 and had a history of hypertension and hyperlipidaemia, said the Ministry of Health (MOH).

MOH said that there are 932 new Covid-19 cases in Singapore on Friday, taking the total count to 17,101.

It is the eighth day in a row where the new daily infections fell below 1,000, though Friday’s number is higher than in recent days.

Migrant workers living in dormitories continue to form the bulk of the remaining cases.

MOH announced seven new clusters on Friday, including Joo Koon Lodge and Tuas South Incineration Plant.

The others are 19 Kian Teck Road, 12 Tuas Place, 15 Tuas View Square, 20 Sungei Kadut Avenue and 148 Woodlands Industrial Park E5.

MOH also said that the SingPost Centre cluster has been closed.

Meanwhile, foreign workers living in dormitories made up 905 cases, due to extensive testing.

Most of them have mild illness and are being monitored in community isolation facilities or general wards of hospitals, said MOH.

Foreign workers living outside dorms made up 16 cases on Friday.

Eleven new cases in the community comprised five Singaporeans and permanent residents and six who hold work passes. The number of new cases in the community continues to decrease, from an average of 25 cases two weeks ago, to an average of 12 a day this past week.

The number of unlinked cases in the community has also fallen, from an average of 16 cases per day in the week before, to an average of 6 per day in the past week.

There were no imported cases.

Another 24 patients were discharged on Friday, said MOH. This includes a 102-year-old woman, a resident at Lee Ah Mooi Old Age Home.

An administrator at the home, Mr Then Kim Yuan, told The Straits Times that only one 96-year-old resident remains in hospital, out of the 16 residents and staff that had been infected.

The total number of people in Singapore who have fully recovered from the infection is 1,268.

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Of the 1,764 patients still in hospital, most are stable or improving, said MOH.

Twenty-three of them are in critical condition in the intensive care unit (ICU).

Another 14,053 patients, who have mild symptoms or are clinically well but still test positive for Covid-19, have been isolated and are being cared for at community facilities.

A total of 16 have died of Covid-19 complications, including a 58-year-old woman who died on Thursday.

During a press conference on Friday, Ministry of Health director of medical services Kenneth Mak said that the 58-year-old had been considered in the higher risk group due to her age and also her medical history of having diabetes.

“We’ve in fact looked at the cases that come from the National Centre for Infectious Diseases and patients above the age of 50 are in fact having a higher risk for requiring oxygen therapy and coming into the ICU,” he added.

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Globally, the outbreak, which began in December last year, has infected more than 3.3 million people. Some 233,000 have died.

The United States is the worst affected country in the world with more than 1.09 million cases and 63,000 deaths from Covid-19 as of Friday.