SINGAPORE – There were 45 new coronavirus cases confirmed as at Thursday noon (Jan 14), taking Singapore’s total to 59,029.

These included 44 imported cases who had been placed on stay-home notice or isolated on arrival in Singapore, said the Ministry of Health (MOH). This is the highest number of imported cases since March 23 when there were 48 imported cases.

There was also one case in the community and none from workers’ dormitories.

More details will be announced on Thursday night.

On Wednesday, the lone locally transmitted coronavirus case reported was from a workers’ dormitory, said MOH in a statement.

The man is a work permit holder who arrived from India on Dec 11 and served his stay-home notice at a dedicated facility until Dec 25.

His swabs done on Dec 21 and 27 both came back negative. But a subsequent test taken on Tuesday, as part of rostered routine testing, came back positive.

“Given the relatively long time interval between his travel and positive Covid-19 test, we have classified this case as locally transmitted while epidemiological investigations are in progress,” said MOH.

The patient, who is currently unlinked, resides at Seatown Dormitory in Tuas and started work in the construction sector on Jan 6.

MOH added that all his close contacts, including those in the dormitory and his co-workers, have been isolated and placed under quarantine. They will be tested at the start and end of their quarantine period so that asymptomatic cases can be detected.

MOH also announced on Wednesday that there were 37 imported cases.

They included three Singaporeans and five permanent residents who returned from France, India, Indonesia, Britain and the United States.

There were also 21 work permit holders who arrived from Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar and the Philippines.

Eight of the work permit holders are foreign domestic workers, while one is a sailor who worked on board bunker tanker NewOcean 6.

The 49-year-old Indonesian man was newly added to the NewOcean 6 cluster, which now has a total of 12 confirmed cases.

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He was placed under quarantine on Dec 31 and tested positive on Tuesday.

NewOcean 6 ceased all operations after MOH announced that nine cases were linked to the cluster on Tuesday.

The imported cases also included a short-term visit pass holder who arrived from Brazil to participate in an e-sports event.

Overall, there were four new cases in the community in the last seven days, and 12 the week before. There were also two unlinked cases in the community in the last seven days, compared with five the week before.

With 28 cases discharged on Wednesday, 58,707 patients have fully recovered from the disease.

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A total of 56 patients remain in hospital, including one in the intensive care unit, while 177 are recuperating in community facilities.

Singapore has had 29 deaths from Covid-19 complications, while 15 who tested positive have died of other causes.

Globally, the virus outbreak, which began in December 2019, has infected more than 91.6 million people. More than 1.96 million people have died.