1 New Case of Locally Transmitted COVID-19 Infection

    As of 18 April 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 22 imported cases, who had already been placed on Stay-Home Notice (SHN) or isolated upon arrival in Singapore. Amongst the new cases today, 22 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 increased from 2 cases in the week before to 8 cases in the past week. The number of unlinked cases in the community has also increased from 2 cases in the week before to 5 cases 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 178 confirmed cases reported from 12 April to 18 April, 55 cases have tested positive for their serology tests, 91 have tested negative, and 32 serology test results are pending.

Case Details

a) Cases in the community: 1
There is 1 case in the community today who is currently unlinked. Case 62113 is a 39 year-old male Indonesian national who is a sea crew on board a bunker tanker. He had not disembarked from the vessel except to go for COVID-19 testing and vaccination.He is asymptomatic, and was detected when he was tested on 15 April as part of Rostered Routine Testing (RRT). His pooled test result came back positive for COVID-19 the next day, and he was conveyed in an ambulance to the National Centre for Infectious Diseases. An individual test done on 16 April also came back positive for COVID-19 infection the next day. His earlier tests from RRT – the last being on 1 April – had all been negative for COVID-19 infection. His serological test result has come back negative, indicating that this is likely a current infection. He has tested preliminarily positive for the B117 strain, and is pending further confirmatory tests.Case 62113 received his first dose of COVID-19 vaccination on 15 April. As the vaccine does not contain live virus, he could not have been infected due to vaccination. It is possible for one to be infected just before or just after vaccination as it typically takes a few weeks for an individual to build up immunity after completing vaccination.Epidemiological investigations are ongoing. In the meantime, all the identified close contacts of the case, including the crew members of the vessel, 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.b) Cases residing in dormitories: 0

There are no cases residing in dormitories today.
c) Imported cases: 22

Amongst the 22 imported cases,

• 5 (Cases 62108, 62119, 62134, 62135 and 62136) are Singapore Permanent Residents who returned from India.

• 2 (Cases 62101 and 62123) are Dependant’s Pass holders who arrived from Nepal.

• 1 (Case 62109) is a Long-Term Visit Pass holder who arrived from India.

• 5 (Cases 62103, 62104, 62129, 62132 and 62133) are Work Pass holders who arrived from India and Kazakhstan.

• 5 (Cases 62105, 62106, 62107, 62112 and 62130) are Work Permit holders who arrived from Bangladesh and India.

• 4 (Cases 62110, 62111, 62120 and 62121) are Short-Term Visit Pass holders. Cases 62110 and 62121 are sea crew who arrived from the Philippines and Myanmar respectively. Case 62110 was placed on SHN upon arrival in Singapore, and Case 62121 had not disembarked and was tested onboard. Cases 62111 and 62120 arrived from Indonesia and Romania for work assignments in Singapore.

They had all already been placed on SHN or isolated upon arrival in Singapore and were tested while serving SHN or during isolation.
Case 62110 is a 43 year-old male Filipino sea crew who arrived from the Philippines on 24 March to board a vessel that is docked in Singapore. His on-arrival test on 24 March was negative for COVID-19. He served SHN at a dedicated facility from 24 March to 7 April, and his test done on 6 April during SHN was also negative for COVID-19. He boarded his designated vessel on 8 April, where he had not disembarked from. On 16 April, he was tested as part of the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore’s protocol to test sea crew, and was conveyed to a hospital when his test came back positive for COVID-19 infection. His Ct value was very high, which is indicative of a low viral load, and his serology test result has also come back positive. Given that these indicate likely past infection, we have classified the case as imported based on his travel history. He is likely to be shedding minute fragments of the virus RNA, which are no longer transmissible and infective to others.

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.   22 more cases of COVID-19 infection have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities. In all, 60,485 have fully recovered from the infection and have been discharged from hospitals or community care facilities.

6.   There are currently 68 confirmed cases who are still in hospital. Of these, most are stable or improving, and 2 are in critical condition in the intensive care unit. 248 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. 30 have passed away from complications due to COVID-19 infection.

MINISTRY OF HEALTH
18 APRIL 2021