1. As of 24 October 2020, 12pm, the Ministry of Health (MOH) has confirmed and verified 3 new cases of locally transmitted COVID-19 infection. Of these, 2 are in the community, and 1 resides in a dormitory. In addition, there are 11 imported cases, who had all been placed on Stay-Home Notice (SHN) upon arrival in Singapore. Amongst the new cases today, 12 are asymptomatic, and were detected from our proactive screening and surveillance, while 2 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 | 2 | | 0 | 2 | | 2 | 0 |
Cases residing in dormitories | 1 | | 0 | 1 | | 0 | 1 |
Imported cases | 11 | | 11 | 0 | | 0 | 11 |
Total | 14 | | | | | | |
2. Overall, the number of new cases in the community has decreased from 4 cases in the week before, to 3 in the past week. The number of unlinked cases in the community has increased from 1 case in the week before, to 3 in the past week. 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: 2
There are 2 cases in the community today who are currently unlinked. Case 58125 is a security officer at Changi Airport Terminal 3. Prior to hospital admission, he had gone to work, as well as visited the Singapore National Eye Centre for treatment of a non-related medical condition. Case 58138 is a temperature screener and swab assistant at Raffles Medical at Changi Airport Terminal 3, and had gone to work prior to hospital admission. Both cases were detected under our enhanced community testing to test all individuals aged 13 and above who are diagnosed with acute respiratory infection (ARI) at first presentation to a doctor. This allows us to identify infected individuals early and to quickly contain further spread.
While both cases work at Changi Airport Terminal 3, they had not interacted with each other, and epidemiological investigations so far have not established any link between them. As a precautionary measure, all individuals working at Changi Airport Terminal 3 who may have contact with travellers will be tested for COVID-19.
As travel volume is expected to pick up in the coming months, MOH has been in discussion with relevant agencies to ramp up Rostered Routine Testing of frontline staff working at Changi Airport. More details will be provided later.
b) Cases residing in dormitories: 1
There is 1 case residing in a dormitory today. He was detected through our bi-weekly Rostered Routine Testing of workers living in dormitories. 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.
c) Imported cases: 11
Amongst the 11 imported cases, 3 (Cases 58131, 58135 and 58136) are Singaporeans and 1 (Case 58130) is a Singapore Permanent Resident who returned from India and the Philippines. Another 3 (Cases 58126, 58127 and 58128) are Work Permit holders currently employed in Singapore who arrived from Indonesia and the Philippines. 3 more cases are a Student's Pass holder (Case 58133) who arrived from France and 2 Long-Term Visit Pass holders (Cases 58129 and 58134) who arrived from India and Indonesia. The remaining case (Case 58137) is a Short-Term Visit Pass holder who arrived from India. She was allowed entry into Singapore as her parent is a Singapore Permanent Resident.
They had all 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. 12 more cases of COVID-19 infection have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities. In all, 57,844 have fully recovered from the infection and have been discharged from hospitals or community care facilities.
7. There are currently 53 confirmed cases who are still in hospital. Of these, most are stable or improving, and none is in the intensive care unit. 40 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.