NO NEW CASES OF LOCALLY TRANSMITTED COVID-19 INFECTION

1.      As of 9 February 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 11 imported cases, of whom 10 had already been placed on Stay-Home Notice (SHN) upon arrival in Singapore. Amongst the new cases today, 10 are asymptomatic, and were detected from our proactive screening and surveillance, while 1 was symptomatic.  

Summary of new cases

2.      Overall, the number of new cases in the community has increased from 3 cases in the week before to 4 cases in the past week. The number of unlinked cases in the community has also increased from 2 cases in the week before to 4 cases 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 148 confirmed cases reported from 3 February to 9 February, 86 cases have tested positive for their serology tests, 28 have tested negative, and 34 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: 11

Amongst the 11 imported cases, 

• 2 (Cases 60080 and 60102) are Singaporeans who returned from the UAE.
• 1 (Case 60094) is a Dependant’s Pass holder who arrived from India.
• 3 (Cases 60081, 60087 and 60089) are Student's Pass holders who arrived from India, Indonesia and Russia.
• 3 (Cases 60095, 60097 and 60098) are Work Permit holders who arrived from Indonesia and the Philippines, all of whom are foreign domestic workers.
• 2 (Cases 60086 and 60088) are Short-Term Visit Pass holders. Case 60086 arrived from Indonesia to visit her Singaporean spouse. Case 60088 arrived from Bangladesh as a caregiver to her spouse who was already receiving medical care in Singapore.

Amongst them, 10 had already been placed on SHN upon arrival in Singapore and were tested while serving SHN. 

Case 60102

Case 60102 is a 41 year-old female Singaporean who works as a cabin crew with Singapore Airlines. She departed Singapore on 30 January on a turnaround flight to the UAE, and returned on 31 January without disembarking from the aircraft at the overseas destination. 

She developed anosmia on 4 February, but did not seek medical attention. On 7 February, she was tested for COVID-19 as part of the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore’s requirement for air crew to be tested following their return from overseas. Her pooled test result came back positive for COVID-19 on 8 February, and she was conveyed to the National Centre for Infectious Diseases for an individual swab, and isolated. Her test result came back positive for COVID-19 infection the next day. Her previous test on 22 January following another turnaround flight was negative for COVID-19. Her serology test result has come back negative, indicating that this is likely a current infection. She has also tested preliminarily positive for the B117 strain, and is pending further confirmatory tests. 

Case 60102 received her first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine on 2 February. As the vaccine does not contain live virus, she could not have been infected due to vaccination. It is possible for one to be infected just before or just after vaccination as it typically takes a few weeks for an individual to build up immunity after completing vaccination. 

Besides Case 60102, 4 passengers on the same flight (Cases 59885, 59893, 59901 and 59902) have tested positive for COVID-19 infection, and are also preliminarily positive for the B117 strain. In view of her recent travel history, and the possibility that she might have been infected onboard the flight, we have preliminarily classified this case as imported. 

4.      Epidemiological investigations are ongoing. In the meantime, all the identified close contacts of the case, including her family 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.      22 more cases of COVID-19 infection have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities. In all, 59,506 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 1 is in critical condition in the intensive care unit. 157 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.