110 More Cases Discharged, 51 New Cases Of COVID-19 Infection Confirmed

          As of 29 August 2020, 12pm, the Ministry of Health (MOH) has confirmed and verified an additional 51 cases of COVID-19 infection in Singapore. The breakdown of the cases is as follows:

Summary of new cases

All new cases today are asymptomatic, and were detected from our proactive screening and surveillance. 

a) Imported cases: 3 (1 Singaporean, 1 Work Pass holder, 1 Student’s Pass holder)

Amongst the 3 imported cases, 1 (Case 56777) is a Singaporean who returned to Singapore from India on 16 August. Another case (Case 56791) is a Work Pass holder currently employed in Singapore who arrived from Bangladesh on 17 August. The remaining case (Case 56778) is a Student’s Pass holder who arrived from Bangladesh on 17 August. All of them had been placed on 14-day Stay-Home Notice (SHN) upon arrival in Singapore, and had been tested while serving their SHN at dedicated facilities. 

b) Cases in the community: 1 (1 Work Permit holder)

There is 1 case in the community who is currently unlinked. Case 56765 was detected as a result of our Rostered Routine Testing of workers in the construction, marine and process sectors who are living outside the dormitories. Epidemiological investigations of the case are in progress. In the meantime, all the identified close contacts of the case 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 his household contacts to determine if he could have been infected by them. 

Overall, the number of new cases in the community has remained stable at an average of 2 cases per day in the past 2 weeks. The number of unlinked cases in the community has also remained stable at an average of 1 case per day in the past 2 weeks. We will continue to closely monitor these numbers, as well as the cases detected through our surveillance programme.

c) Cases residing in dormitories: 47

Amongst the 47 cases residing in dormitories, 37 had been identified earlier as contacts of previous cases, and had already been quarantined to prevent further transmission. They were tested during quarantine to determine their status.  

The remaining 10 cases were detected through surveillance testing, such as our bi-weekly Rostered Routine Testing of workers living in dormitories and testing of those with ARI symptoms. This allows us to pick up cases early, including asymptomatic ones, so that we are able to ring-fence them quickly to prevent further transmission, by aggressively containing, tracing and isolating the close contacts. 

2.        Details of these trends can be found in MOH’s daily situation Report (www.moh.gov.sg/covid-19/situation-report). Please refer to Annex A for the summary of the confirmed cases. 

3.        Of the new cases, 98% are imported or linked to known cases/ clusters, while the rest are pending contact tracing. 

Links between previous cases found

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

Update on condition of confirmed cases

5.         110 more cases of COVID-19 infection have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities. In all, 55,447 have fully recovered from the infection and have been discharged from hospitals or community care facilities. 

6. There are currently 70 confirmed cases who are still in hospital. Of these, most are stable or improving, and none is in the intensive care unit. 1,173 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. 27 have passed away from complications due to COVID-19 infection. 

MINISTRY OF HEALTH
29 AUGUST 2020