COVID-19: Singapore orders lockdown as number of ‘local’ cases rise significantly

Most workplaces will close for a month in Singapore from April 7, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced on Friday, saying that the country needs to “make a decisive move now” to stop coronavirus.

“We will close most workplaces except for essential services,” Lee said, calling the move a “circuit breaker” aimed at interrupting a rise in coronavirus infections over the past week.

Singapore has seen cases of COVID-19 rise to 1,049, with most of this week’s cases described as “local.”

“For half these [new] cases we don’t know where or from whom they caught the virus,” Lee said.

More than 1,002,000 people have been diagnosed with the COVID-19 disease worldwide, as the death toll surpassed 51,000 while about 208,000 patients recovered.

Source: NAN & Punch