1 NEW CASE OF LOCALLY TRANSMITTED COVID-19 INFECTION

       As of 27 March 2021, 12pm, the Ministry of Health (MOH) has confirmed and verified that there is 1 new case of locally transmitted COVID-19 infection. The case is in the community, and there are no new cases in the dormitories. There are 22 imported cases, who had already been placed on Stay-Home Notice (SHN) upon arrival in Singapore. Amongst the new cases today, 21 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 increased from none in the week before to 2 cases in the past week. The number of unlinked cases in the community has also increased from none in the week before to 2 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 104 confirmed cases reported from 21 March to 27 March, 38 cases have tested positive for their serology tests, 46 have tested negative, and 20 serology test results are pending.

Case Details

a) Cases in the community: 1

There is 1 case in the community today who is currently unlinked. 

Case 61205 is a 48 year-old female Singapore Permanent Resident who works as a part-time food packer at Sheera Pte Ltd (5 Kaki Bukit Road 1). Her job does not entail interaction with customers. 

She had travelled to India in March 2020, and returned to Singapore on 11 December. She served SHN at a dedicated facility until 25 December and her test taken on 21 December during SHN was negative for COVID-19. She is asymptomatic, and was detected when she took a COVID-19 pre-departure test on 25 March in preparation for another trip to India. Her test result came back positive on 26 March, and she was conveyed via ambulance to the National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID). 

Another test conducted by the National Public Health Laboratory on 26 March was negative for COVID-19 infection, and her serological test result has come back positive. She could be shedding minute fragments of the virus RNA from a past infection, but given that we are not able to definitively conclude when she had been infected, we will take all the necessary public health actions as a precautionary measure.

b) Cases residing in dormitories: 0

There are no cases residing in dormitories today. 

c) Imported cases: 22

Amongst the 22 imported cases, 

• 1 (Case 61226) is a Singaporean and 2 (Cases 61222 and 61223) are Singapore Permanent Residents who returned from India and Kazakhstan.
• 3 (Cases 61208, 61218 and 61221) are Dependant’s Pass holders who arrived from the Philippines, South Africa and the US.
• 3 (Cases 61212, 61215 and 61230) are Student’s Pass holders who arrived from India and Indonesia.
• 1 (Case 61213) is a Work Pass holder who arrived from India.
• 12 are Work Permit holders who arrived from Bangladesh, India, Myanmar and the Philippines, of whom 4 (Cases 61210, 61231, 61237 and 61243) are foreign domestic workers. 

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

Case 61226 is a 49 year-old male Singaporean who returned to Singapore from Kazakhstan on 11 March, and served SHN at a dedicated facility until 25 March. His on-arrival swab done on 11 March was negative for COVID-19, as was his test taken on 24 March during SHN. He developed a cough on the night of 24 March while serving SHN but did not report his symptom and went home on 25 March after his SHN ended. On 26 March, he developed a fever and headache and sought medical treatment at a General Practitioner clinic, where he was tested for COVID-19. His test result came back positive for COVID-19 infection on the same day and he was conveyed to NCID. 

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

5.     Epidemiological investigations are in progress. In the meantime, all the identified close contacts of the cases 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 cases could have been infected by them.

Update on condition of confirmed cases

6.    10 more cases of COVID-19 infection have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities. In all, 60,113 have fully recovered from the infection and have been discharged from hospitals or community care facilities. 

7.    There are currently 32 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. 113 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. 30 have passed away from complications due to COVID-19 infection. 

MINISTRY OF HEALTH
27 MARCH 2021