49 More Cases Discharged, 86 New Cases of COVID-19 Infection Confirmed

          As of 11 September 2020, 12pm, the Ministry of Health (MOH) has confirmed and verified an additional 86 [1] cases of COVID-19 infection in Singapore. The breakdown of the cases is as follows:

Summary of new cases

Amongst the new cases today, 85 are asymptomatic, and were detected from our proactive screening and surveillance, while 1 was symptomatic.

a)    Imported cases: 13¹ (3 Singaporeans, 7 Permanent Residents, 2 Dependant’s Pass holders, 1 Student’s Pass holder)

Amongst the 13 imported cases, 3 (Cases 57378, 57422 and 57452) are Singaporeans and 7 (Cases 57377, 57423, 57424, 57425, 57426, 57427 and 57428) are Singapore Permanent Residents who returned to Singapore from Egypt on 27 August, India on 28 August and 30 August and the Philippines on 30 August. Another 2 (Cases 57429 and 57453) are Dependant’s Pass holders who arrived from India on 30 August and the USA on 30 August. The remaining case (Case 57454) is a Student’s Pass holder who arrived from India on 30 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: 0

There are no cases in the community today.

Overall, the number of new cases in the community has decreased, from an average of 3 cases per day in the week before, to an average of 2 per day in the past week. The number of unlinked cases in the community has also decreased, from an average of 2 cases per day in the week before, to an average of 1 per day in the past week. We will continue to closely monitor these numbers, as well as the cases detected through our surveillance programme.

c)    Cases residing in dormitories: 73

Amongst the 73 cases residing in dormitories, 34 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 39 cases were detected through surveillance testing, such as 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.

Of the cases residing in dormitories today, 33 are from Avery Lodge Dormitory, the majority of whom had been placed on quarantine earlier and were tested during quarantine to determine their status. The remaining cases were detected through surveillance testing.

Besides the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test, we have also conducted serological tests to determine if some of the cases are current or past infections [2].The serological test results for 38 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, 86% 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.             49 more cases of COVID-19 infection have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities. In all, 56,607 have fully recovered from the infection and have been discharged from hospitals or community care facilities.

6.             There are currently 49 confirmed cases who are still in hospital. Of these, most are stable or improving, and none is in the intensive care unit. 632 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.

[2] Updated from the afternoon press release as an imported case has been removed following investigation. Case 57451 has presented medical records documenting that she had earlier recovered from COVID-19 infection and is no longer infectious.