392 More Cases Discharged, 42 New Cases of COVID-19 Infection Confirmed

1. As of 12 August 2020, 12pm, the Ministry of Health (MOH) has confirmed and verified an additional 42 cases of COVID-19 infection in Singapore. The breakdown of the cases is as follows:

a) Imported cases: 11 (2 Singaporeans, 3 Work Pass holders, 1 Work Permit holder, 4 Dependant’s Pass holders, 1 Special Pass holder)

Amongst the 11 imported cases, 2 are Singaporeans who returned to Singapore from India on 3 July (Case 55439) and from Indonesia on 30 July (Case 55436). Case 55439 is a child who had served his Stay-Home Notice (SHN) with his parent and siblings in the same room at a dedicated facility, and was subsequently placed on quarantine when his SHN contacts tested positive for COVID-19. He was tested during quarantine to verify his status.

4 cases (Cases 55444, 55464, 55465 and 55470) are Dependant’s Pass holders who arrived from India on 28 July and 31 July. Another 4 cases (Cases 55455, 55456, 55457 and 55458) are Work Pass/ Work Permit holders currently employed in Singapore who arrived from the Philippines on 29 July and from India on 31 July.

All of them had been placed on 14-day SHN upon arrival in Singapore, and were serving their SHN at dedicated facilities. They had been tested while serving their SHN or quarantine.

The remaining case (Case 55471) is a seaman currently holding a Special Pass who arrived in Singapore from India on 8 August on a vessel. He reported symptoms and was swabbed while on the vessel. He had remained on the vessel until his test result came back positive for COVID-19, and was subsequently conveyed in an ambulance to a hospital.

b) Cases in the community: 1 (1 Singaporean)

There is 1 case in the community today (Case 55469) who had been identified as a contact of a previously confirmed case. He had been placed on quarantine earlier, and was tested during quarantine.

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: 30

The Inter-agency Taskforce has completed the testing of all workers in the dormitories. There are currently about 22,800 workers who are still serving out their quarantine period.¹ These workers will be tested when their quarantine ends, and we expect the case counts to remain high in the coming days, before tapering down thereafter.

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, 99% are linked to known clusters, while the rest are pending contact tracing.

4. The Inter-agency Taskforce has completed the clearing of dormitories through aggressive testing of workers. The dormitories at 33 Senoko Way and 23 Sungei Kadut Street 2 have been cleared, and now house only recovered individuals and those who have recently tested negative for COVID-19 infection. As such, the clusters have now been closed.

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 B and Annex C for details.

Update on condition of confirmed cases

6. 392 more cases of COVID-19 infection have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities. In all, 50,520 have fully recovered from the infection and have been discharged from hospitals or community care facilities.

7. There are currently 92 confirmed cases who are still in hospital. Of these, most are stable or improving, and none is in the intensive care unit. 4,756 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.

[1] Includes about 800 migrant workers who were newly quarantined because we discovered a case amongst them in a cleared dormitory.

MINISTRY OF HEALTH
12 AUGUST 2020