24th Feb 2021
As of 24 February 2021, 12pm, the Ministry of Health (MOH) has confirmed and verified that there is 1 new case of locally transmitted COVID-19 infection. The case is in the community, and there are no new cases in the dormitories. There are 6 imported cases, who had already been placed on Stay-Home Notice (SHN) or isolated upon arrival in Singapore. Amongst the new cases today, 6 are asymptomatic, and were detected from our proactive screening and surveillance, while 1 was symptomatic.
Summary of new cases
| | | | Breakdown by | | Breakdown by |
| | Number of cases | | Already in quarantine/ isolation before detection | Detected from surveillance | | Symptomatic | Asymptomatic |
| Cases in the community | 1 | | 1 | 0 | | 1 | 0 |
| Cases residing in dormitories | 0 | | 0 | 0 | | 0 | 0 |
| Imported cases | 6 | | 6 | 0 | | 0 | 6 |
| Total | 7 | | | | | | |
2. Overall, the number of new cases in the community has decreased from 6 cases in the week before to 2 cases in the past week. The number of unlinked cases in the community has also decreased from 3 cases in the week before to none 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 69 confirmed cases reported from 18 February to 24 February, 47 cases have tested positive for their serology tests, 14 have tested negative, and 8 serology test results are pending.
Case Details
a) Cases in the community: 1
There is 1 case in the community today who is linked to a previous case.
Case 60439 is a 35 year-old female Indonesian national who is employed as a foreign domestic worker by Cases 60102 [1] and 60389 [2]. She had been identified as a close contact of Case 60102 and was placed on quarantine on 9 February. Her swab taken on 9 February was negative for COVID-19, and she also tested negative for her serology test on the same day.
She developed a cough on 20 February during quarantine, but it was not reported to MOH. On 22 February, she was tested for COVID-19 and her result came back positive for COVID-19 infection the next day. She was subsequently conveyed in an ambulance to the National Centre for Infectious Diseases. Her serological test result has come back positive but this is likely to be a recent infection. She has also tested preliminarily positive for the B117 strain, and is pending further confirmatory tests.
b) Cases residing in dormitories: 0
There are no cases residing in dormitories today.
c) Imported cases: 6
Amongst the 6 imported cases,
• 2 (Cases 60438 and 60441) are Work Pass holders who arrived from India and Japan.
• 1 (Case 60444) is a Work Permit holder who arrived from Indonesia and is a foreign domestic worker.
• 1 (Case 60440) is a Student’s Pass holder who arrived from India for studies in Singapore.
• 2 (Cases 60436 and 60437) are Short-Term Visit Pass holders. Case 60436 arrived from Sri Lanka to visit his family member who works in Singapore. Case 60437 is a sea crew who arrived from Malaysia on a vessel, and was tested onboard without disembarking.
They had all already been placed on SHN or isolated upon arrival in Singapore and were tested while serving SHN or during isolation.
4. Please refer to the Annexes and MOH’s daily Situation Report (www.moh.gov.sg/covid-19/situation-report) for details.
5. Epidemiological investigations are in progress. In the meantime, all the identified close contacts of the cases 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 cases could have been infected by them.
Update on condition of confirmed cases
6. 8 more cases of COVID-19 infection have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities. In all, 59,761 have fully recovered from the infection and have been discharged from hospitals or community care facilities.
7. There are currently 18 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.
Shipments of COVID-19 vaccines
8. We received the first shipment of Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine on 23 February 2021. Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine has not yet been authorised by the Health Sciences Authority (HSA) for use in Singapore. Sinovac has started submitting initial data, and HSA is currently awaiting Sinovac’s submission of all the necessary information in order to carry out a thorough scientific assessment of the manufacturing process, safety and efficacy of the vaccine under the Pandemic Special Access Route.
9. On 24 February, we also received another shipment of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. We will continue to monitor our supplies closely to meet our target of vaccinating all Singaporeans and long-term residents in Singapore by end of 2021.
MINISTRY OF HEALTH
24 FEBRUARY 2021
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[1] Case 60102 is a 41 year-old female Singaporean who works as a cabin crew with Singapore Airlines. She was confirmed to have COVID-19 infection on 9 February.
[2] Case 60389 is a 43 year-old male Singaporean who is the spouse of Case 60102. He was confirmed to have COVID-19 infection on 21 February.