1 New Case of Locally Transmitted COVID-19 Infection

          As of 23 February 2021, 12pm, the Ministry of Health (MOH) has confirmed and verified 1 new case of locally transmitted COVID-19 infection. The case resides in a dormitory and there are no new cases in the community. There are 3 imported cases, who had already been placed on Stay-Home Notice (SHN) upon arrival in Singapore. Amongst the new cases today, 3 are asymptomatic, and were detected from our proactive screening and surveillance, while 1 was symptomatic. 

Summary of new cases

2.        Overall, the number of new cases in the community has decreased from 5 cases in the week before to 2 cases in the past week. The number of unlinked cases in the community has also decreased from 2 cases in the week before to 1 case in the past week. We will continue to closely monitor these numbers, as well as the cases detected through our surveillance programme.

3.        Amongst the 73 confirmed cases reported from 17 February to 23 February, 48 cases have tested positive for their serology tests, 13 have tested negative, and 12 serology test results are pending.

Case Details

a) Cases in the community: 0

There are no cases in the community today.

b) Cases residing in dormitories: 1

There is 1 case residing in a dormitory today who is currently unlinked.

Case 60432 is a 35 year-old male Bangladesh national who works as a delivery assistant at Chng Woodworking Pte Ltd, and resides in a dormitory located at Kranji Way. His job entails loading and unloading of goods, and he does not interact with clients.

He was detected when his pooled COVID-19 test taken on 21 February as part of Rostered Routine Testing (RRT) came back positive. An individual swab was done on 22 February, and he started to develop a sore throat and cough on the same day. He was confirmed to have COVID-19 infection on 22 February, and was conveyed in an ambulance to the National Centre for Infectious Diseases. His earlier tests from RRT – the last being on 7 February – were negative for COVID-19 infection. His serological test result has come back negative, indicating that this is likely a current infection.

Epidemiological investigations are in progress. In the meantime, all the identified close contacts of the case, including his dormitory and workplace contacts, have been isolated and placed on quarantine, and will be tested at the start and end of their quarantine period so that we can detect asymptomatic cases. We will also conduct serological tests for the close contacts to determine if the case could have been infected by them.

c) Imported cases: 3

Amongst the 3 imported cases,

• 1 (Case 60423) is a Work Pass holder who arrived from the UAE and UK.

• 1 (Case 60430) is a Work Permit holder who arrived from the Philippines and is a foreign domestic worker.

• 1 (Case 60427) is a Short-Term Visit Pass holder who arrived from India to visit his family members who are Singapore Permanent Residents.
  

They had all already been placed on SHN upon arrival in Singapore and were tested while serving SHN.

4.        Please refer to the Annexes and MOH’s daily Situation Report (www.moh.gov.sg/covid-19/situation-report) for details.

Update on condition of confirmed cases

5.        7 more cases of COVID-19 infection have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities. In all, 59,753 have fully recovered from the infection and have been discharged from hospitals or community care facilities.

6.        There are currently 19 confirmed cases who are still in hospital. Of these, most are stable or improving, and 1 is in critical condition in the intensive care unit. 82 are isolated and cared for at community facilities. These are those who have mild symptoms, or are clinically well but still test positive for COVID-19. 29 have passed away from complications due to COVID-19 infection.

MINISTRY OF HEALTH
23 FEBRUARY 2021