423 More Cases Discharged, 51 New Cases of COVID-19 Infection Confirmed

Imported cases

7

0

7

Cases in the community

1

0

1

Cases residing in dormitories 

26

17

43

a) Imported cases: 7 (1 Permanent Resident, 2 Work Permit holders, 3 Dependant’s Pass holders, 1 Long-Term Visit Pass holder)

Amongst the 7 imported cases, 1 (Case 56467) is a Singapore Permanent Resident who returned to Singapore from India on 12 August. 4 (Cases 56448, 56453, 56454 and 56456) are Dependant’s Pass and Long-Term Pass holders who arrived from India and the Netherlands on 9 August and 10 August. Another 2 (Cases 56465 and 56468) are Work Permit holders currently employed in Singapore who arrived from India and Indonesia on 12 August.

All the cases had been placed on 14-day Stay-Home Notice (SHN) upon arrival in Singapore, and were serving their SHN at dedicated facilities. They had been tested while serving their SHN.

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

There is 1 case in the community today (Case 56466) who had been identified as a contact of a previously confirmed case. She had been placed on quarantine earlier, and was tested during quarantine to determine her status.

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: 43

Amongst the 43 cases residing in dormitories, 26 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 17 cases were detected through surveillance testing, such as our bi-weekly Rostered Routine Testing of workers living in dormitories and testing of those with acute respiratory infection (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.

Besides the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test, we have also conducted serological tests to determine if some of these cases are current or past infections.¹ The serological test results for 11 cases have come back positive so far, which indicate likely past infections.

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, 88% are imported or linked to known cases/ clusters, while the rest are pending contact tracing.

4. MOH has completed our screening and testing of all individuals who had visited Jewel Music Box KTV at HomeTeamNS Khatib on 1 August and 2 August. The KTV was not operational during the visits and there were no singing activities held. This is a precautionary measure following the detection of 3 cases (Cases 55169, 55469 and 55712) who had visited the KTV during the affected dates, even though the risk of infection for visitors is assessed to be low. In all, 322 individuals were tested, and all the results have come back negative.

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. 423 more cases of COVID-19 infection have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities. In all, 54,587 have fully recovered from the infection and have been discharged from hospitals or community care facilities.

7. There are currently 84 confirmed cases who are still in hospital. Of these, most are stable or improving, and none is in the intensive care unit. 1,706 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] Cases whose serological tests are positive are likely to have a past infection, and could be shedding minute fragments of the virus RNA picked by the PCR test, which were no longer transmissible and infective to others.

MINISTRY OF HEALTH
24 AUGUST 2020