SINGAPORE, Dec 31 — Singapore today registered 30 new cases of Covid-19. There are five locally transmitted infections and 25 imported cases.

This is the highest daily case tally since Sept 21, when there were 31 coronavirus infections. The number of Covid-19 cases in Singapore stands at 58,599.

The Ministry of Health (MOH) said that of the five cases in the community, two are family members of Case 58,810, a marine surveyor who is a Singapore permanent resident.

The origin of his infection, which was recorded on Wednesday, is unknown. 

The 46-year-old man works at inspection services company Lloyd’s Register Singapore and his job entails working on board vessels docked at Sembcorp Marine Admiralty Yard. 

The other three community cases make up a family cluster involving a harbour pilot, Case 58,817, whose infection was picked up through rostered routine resting for workers at greater risk of contracting the virus.

Separately, the 25 imported cases were placed on stay-home notices or isolated on arrival in Singapore. Among them, five patients are Singaporeans or permanent residents and nine are foreign domestic workers. 

MOH said that it is aggressively tracing and testing the close contacts of the community cases, so as to ringfence those infections and prevent further transmission. In addition, the ministry will start a special operation to test individuals who boarded the ships that Cases 58,810 and 58,817 recently worked on. 

"We will also test harbour pilots, marine surveyors and ship-repair workers in the coming days, regardless of their rostered-routine-testing schedule, to determine their Covid-19 status,” MOH said.

"In view of the recent cases involving the marine sector, we will review the need to tighten our precautionary measures for these workers.” MOH will provide more information about the cases to night. — TODAY