NO NEW CASES OF LOCALLY TRANSMITTED COVID-19 INFECTION

      As of 28 January 2021, 12pm, the Ministry of Health (MOH) has confirmed and verified that there are no new cases of locally transmitted COVID-19 infection. There are 34 imported cases, who had already been placed on Stay-Home Notice (SHN) or isolated upon arrival in Singapore. Amongst the new cases today, 32 are asymptomatic, and were detected from our proactive screening and surveillance, while 2 were symptomatic.  

Summary of new cases

2.     Overall, the number of new cases in the community has decreased from 21 cases in the week before to 1 case in the past week. The number of unlinked cases in the community has also decreased from 6 cases in the week before to none in the past week. We will continue to closely monitor these numbers, as well as the cases detected through our surveillance programme.

3.     Amongst the 190 confirmed cases reported from 22 January to 28 January, 105 cases have tested positive for their serology tests, 38 have tested negative, and 47 serology test results are pending.

Case Details

a) Cases in the community: 0

There are no cases in the community today. 

b) Cases residing in dormitories: 0

There are no cases residing in dormitories today.

c) Imported cases: 34

Amongst the 34 imported cases, 

- 3 (Cases 59709, 59711 and 59722) are Singaporeans and 5 (Cases 59695, 59696, 59698, 59716 and 59723) are Singapore Permanent Residents who returned from Indonesia, Malaysia, Oman, Sri Lanka, the UAE and US.
- 2 (Cases 59694 and 59719) are Dependant’s Pass holders who arrived from Bangladesh and the UAE. 
- 1 (Case 59714) is a Long-Term Visit Pass holder who arrived from India. 
- 4 (Cases 59701, 59703, 59706 and 59710) are Work Pass holders who arrived from India, Pakistan and Romania.
- 16 are Work Permit holders who arrived from Bangladesh, India, Indonesia and Malaysia, of whom 9 (Cases 59699, 59704, 59705, 59708, 59715, 59717, 59718, 59724 and 59725) are foreign domestic workers.
- 3 (Cases 59700, 59712 and 59713) are Short-Term Visit Pass holders. Cases 59700 and 59712 arrived from Indonesia and the US respectively for work projects in Singapore. Case 59713 arrived from Indonesia to visit her child who is a Singaporean. 

They had all already been placed on SHN or isolated upon arrival in Singapore and were tested while serving SHN or during isolation. 

Case 59697 is a Work Permit holder who has not started work since his arrival in Singapore. He arrived from Bangladesh on 6 January, and served SHN at a dedicated facility. His swab done on 17 January during SHN was negative for COVID-19.  But on 18 January, he was placed on quarantine and isolation as he had been identified as a flight contact of Case 59423.  He was tested on 26 January even though he is asymptomatic, and his result came back positive for COVID-19 infection. His serology test result has come back negative, and he has also tested preliminarily positive for the B117 strain, and is pending further confirmatory tests. 

Case 59703 is a Work Pass holder who works as a software engineer at Pacific International Lines Pte Ltd. He arrived from India on 27 December 2020 and served SHN at a dedicated facility until 10 January 2021. His swab done on 7 January during SHN was negative for COVID-19. He subsequently worked from home from 11 January to 21 January. He developed nausea on 25 January, and sought medical treatment at a general practitioner clinic on 26 January. As he also reported intermittent cough and a sore throat, he was tested for COVID-19 and his test came back positive on 27 January. He has also tested preliminarily positive for the B117 strain. His serological test result has come back positive, which indicates a likely past infection. 

Given their recent travel history, we have classified both cases as imported.

4.     Epidemiological investigations are ongoing. In the meantime, all the identified close contacts of the cases, including their household members and co-workers, 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 case could have been infected by them.

5.     Please refer to the Annexes and MOH’s daily Situation Report (www.moh.gov.sg/covid-19/situation-report) for details. 

Update on condition of confirmed cases

6.     44 more cases of COVID-19 infection have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities. In all, 59,148 have fully recovered from the infection and have been discharged from hospitals or community care facilities. 

7.     There are currently 40 confirmed cases who are still in hospital. Of these, most are stable or improving, and none is in the intensive care unit. 208 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. 29 have passed away from complications due to COVID-19 infection. 

MINISTRY OF HEALTH
28 JANUARY 2021