1 New Case of Locally Transmitted COVID-19 Infection

1. As of 5 November 2020, 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) 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

2. Overall, the number of new cases in the community has remained low, with a total of 2 cases in the past week. Both cases are currently unlinked. We will continue to closely monitor these numbers, as well as the cases detected through our surveillance programme.

Case Details

a) Cases in the community: 1

There is 1 case in the community today who is currently unlinked. Case 58224 is a Short-Term Visit Pass holder whose spouse is a Singapore Permanent Resident. He arrived in Singapore from the US on 11 October, and was placed on SHN upon arrival in Singapore. He was tested on 22 October while serving SHN at a dedicated facility and his result had come back negative. He developed a fever on 30 October and sought medical treatment at a General Practitioner clinic but was diagnosed with suspected dengue. He later developed acute respiratory infection (ARI) symptoms, and was tested for COVID-19 on 2 November under our enhanced community testing to test all individuals aged 13 and above who are diagnosed with ARI. He was conveyed to a hospital when his test came back positive on 4 November.

b) Cases residing in dormitories: 0

There are no cases residing in dormitories today.

c) Imported cases: 6

Amongst the 6 imported cases, 1 (Case 58221) is a Singaporean who returned from the Philippines and 2 (Cases 58219 and 58220) are Singapore Permanent Residents who returned from Iran and India. Another case (Case 58218) is a Long-Term Visit Pass holder who arrived from the UAE. The remaining cases (Cases 58222 and 58223) are Work Permit holders currently employed in Singapore who arrived from Indonesia. They had all already been placed on SHN upon arrival in Singapore and were tested while serving SHN.

3. Details of these trends can be found in MOH’s daily situation Report (www.moh.gov.sg/covid-19/situation-report).

4. 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.

Links between previous cases found

5. Further epidemiological investigations and contact tracing have uncovered links between previously announced and new cases. Please refer to Annex A and Annex B for details.

Update on condition of confirmed cases

6. 11 more cases of COVID-19 infection have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities. In all, 57,949 have fully recovered from the infection and have been discharged from hospitals or community care facilities.

7. There are currently 40 confirmed cases who are still in hospital. Of these, most are stable or improving, and none is in the intensive care unit. 26 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. 28 have passed away from complications due to COVID-19 infection.