84 More Cases Discharged, 18 New Cases of COVID-19 Infection Confirmed

Imported cases

2

0

2

Cases in the community

0

1

1

Cases residing in dormitories

10

5

15

a) Imported cases: 2 (1 Work Pass holder, 1 Dependant’s Pass holder)

There are 2 imported cases today. Case 57659 is a Work Pass holder currently employed in Singapore who arrived from France on 4 September, and Case 57668 is a Dependant’s Pass holder who arrived from India on 5 September. Both of them had been placed on 14-day Stay-Home Notice (SHN) upon arrival in Singapore, and were tested while serving their SHN at dedicated facilities.

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

There is 1 case in the community who is currently unlinked. Case 57656 was detected from our Rostered Routine Testing of workers in the construction, marine and process sectors who are living outside the dormitories, even though he is asymptomatic.

Epidemiological investigations of the case are in progress. In the meantime, all his identified close contacts 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 decreased, from an average of 2 cases per day in the week before, to an average of 1 per day in the past week. The number of unlinked cases in the community has remained stable at fewer than 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: 15

Amongst the 15 cases residing in dormitories, 10 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 5 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.

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.¹ The serological test results for 3 cases have come back positive so far, which indicate likely past infection.

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, 89% 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. 84 more cases of COVID-19 infection have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities. In all, 57,039 have fully recovered from the infection and have been discharged from hospitals or community care facilities.

6. There are currently 43 confirmed cases who are still in hospital. Of these, most are stable or improving, and none is in the intensive care unit. 423 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
17 SEPTEMBER 2020