As of 27 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 11 imported cases, who had already been placed on Stay-Home Notice (SHN) upon arrival in Singapore. Amongst the new cases today, 7 are asymptomatic, and were detected from our proactive screening and surveillance, while 5 were 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 | 11 | | 11 | 0 | | 4 | 7 |
Total | 12 | | | | | | |
2. Overall, the number of new cases in the community has increased from 9 cases in the week before to 11 cases in the past week. The number of unlinked cases in the community has remained stable at 4 cases per week in the past 2 weeks. We will continue to closely monitor these numbers, as well as the cases detected through our surveillance programme.
3. Amongst the 198 confirmed cases reported from 21 April to 27 April, 74 cases have tested positive for their serology tests, 80 have tested negative, and 44 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 62485 is a 42 year-old male Indonesia national who is a sea crew working on board bunker tanker MT ALLI. He had not disembarked from the vessel except to go for COVID-19 vaccination.
As he had been identified as a close contact of Case 62113 [1], he was placed on quarantine on 18 April at a dedicated facility. He was tested during quarantine on 19 April and his result was negative for COVID-19. He subsequently developed a cough and sore throat on 25 April and reported his symptoms. He was conveyed to the National Centre for Infectious Diseases the next day. His test result came back positive for COVID-19 infection, and his serology test is negative.
Case 62485 received his first dose of COVID-19 vaccine on 8 April. As it typically takes a few weeks for an individual to build up immunity after completing vaccination, he was likely to have been infected before he was conferred protection after vaccination.
b) Cases residing in dormitories: 0
There are no cases residing in dormitories today.
As part of our investigations into Case 62181 [2], MOH and the Ministry of Manpower commenced a special testing operations to test residents of Westlite Woodlands Dormitory (2 Woodlands Sector 2), including recovered workers, for COVID-19 infection. So far, 24 recovered workers were found to be positive for COVID-19 [3]. These cases were immediately isolated and conveyed to the National Centre for Infectious Diseases.
MOH, together with an expert panel which comprises infectious diseases and microbiology experts, investigated these cases to assess if they are re-infection cases, or past infections who are shedding minute fragments of the virus RNA which are no longer transmissible and infective to others. Of the 24 cases, 11 cases have been assessed to be shedding virus fragments, and 5 are likely to be cases of COVID-19 re-infection. Two more cases have been determined to be negative for COVID-19 upon re-testing, and the remaining 6 cases are pending assessment by the expert panel.
All 5 re-infection cases occupied the same room at Westlite Woodlands Dormitory, together with Cases 62181 and 62225 [4], and there is currently no evidence of transmission to the rest of the dormitory. Amongst the re-infection cases, 2 had recently arrived from Bangladesh on 6 April. Our epidemiological investigations found that they were likely to have been infected while overseas, and passed the infection to the others in the room. Further epidemiological investigations are ongoing at their workplace.
c) Imported cases: 11
Amongst the 11 imported cases,
- 1 (Case 62494) is a Singaporean and 3 (Cases 62490, 62495 and 62506) are Singapore Permanent Residents who returned from India, Ivory Coast and Kazakhstan.
- 2 (Cases 62498 and 62505) are Dependant’s Pass holders who arrived from Nepal.
- 4 are Work Permit holders who arrived from India, Indonesia and Malaysia, of whom 1 (Case 62493) is a foreign domestic worker.
- 1 (Case 62492) is a Student’s Pass holder who arrived from Malaysia.
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 (https://www.moh.gov.sg/covid-19/situation-report) for details.
5. Epidemiological investigations are ongoing. 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. 22 more cases of COVID-19 infection have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities. In all, 60,704 have fully recovered from the infection and have been discharged from hospitals or community care facilities.
7. There are currently 108 confirmed cases who are still in hospital. Of these, most are stable or improving, and none is in the intensive care unit. 221 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
27 APRIL 2021
[1] Case 62113 is a 39 year-old male Indonesia national who is a sea crew on board a bunker tanker. He was confirmed to have COVID-19 infection on 16 April.
[2] Case 62181 is a 35 year-old male Bangladesh national who resides at Westlite Woodlands Dormitory. He was confirmed to have COVID-19 infection on 19 April.
[3] This is in addition to Cases 62181, 62225 and 62440. Case 62440 is assessed to be an old infection likely acquired while he was overseas, and is unlinked to Cases 62181 and 62225.
[4] Case 62225 is a 32 year-old male Bangladesh national who resides at Westlite Woodlands Dormitory. He was confirmed to have COVID-19 infection on 21 April.