Coronavirus: Singapore boosts testing capacity as infections jump

As part of Singapore's strategy to bring down coronavirus infections in the weeks to come, the government said it has more than doubled its daily testing capacity since early April even as the number of cases jumped beyond 14,000.

The city-state now has capacity to conduct over 8000 tests per day, up from an average of 2900 less than a month ago, the health ministry said in a statement on Monday.

To date, the Southeast Asian nation has tested about 2100 per 100000 persons, which its government noted is higher than US and the UK respectively testing 1600 and 1000 per 100,000 people.

"The higher intensity of testing allows us to pick up far more cases than many other countries," the ministry said in the statement.

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"We also conduct testing as a means of general surveillance to detect signs of community spread and to pick up unlinked cases."

Singapore has pivoted to a more aggressive coronavirus response strategy as cases jumped to 14,423 cases from less than 1000 at the start of this month.

Minister for Trade and Industry Chan Chun Sing said last week that the government hopes to be able to "progressively reopen" its economy in about a month's time and is planning mass testing for its population of 5.7 million people.

Of the total number of confirmed cases, the overwhelming majority are from low-wage worker dormitories spread across the island nation.

Roughly 200,000 of these migrant workers live in these dormitories, Manpower Minister Josephine Teo said in a Facebook post.

According to the health ministry, more than 21,000 of these workers have been tested so far and close to 3000 of them were being tested every day.

Workers who report sick or show acute respiratory infection are immediately pulled aside and isolated, the ministry said.

One urgent priority is to test migrant workers who have moved out of the dormitories but are continuing to work in essential services.

Further testing is done across hospitals and clinics with a focus on high risk groups showing symptoms of acute respiratory infection.

The ministry is also doing more testing to protect vulnerable groups including staff at nursing homes where there is close contact with seniors, heath care workers and front-line officers who have regular contact with confirmed cases.

- Bloomberg