137 More Cases Discharged, 48 New Cases of COVID-19 Infection Confirmed

1.     As of 3 September 2020, 12pm, the Ministry of Health (MOH) has confirmed and verified an additional 48 cases of COVID-19 infection in Singapore. The breakdown of the cases is as follows:

Summary of new cases

All new cases today are asymptomatic, and were detected from our proactive screening and surveillance.

1. Imported cases: 5 (3 Singaporeans/ Permanent Residents, 1 Long-Term Visit Pass holder, 1 Work Permit holder)

    

   Amongst the 5 imported cases, 3 (Cases 57026, 57033 and 57034) are Singaporeans/ Permanent Residents who returned to Singapore from Bangladesh on 31 August, India on 22 August and the UAE on 22 August. Another case (Case 57014) is a Long-Term Visit Pass holder who arrived from India on 23 August. The remaining case (Case 57035) is a Work Permit holder currently employed in Singapore who arrived from the Philippines on 22 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.

2. Cases in the community: 2 (1 Permanent Resident, 1 Work Permit holder)

    

   Both cases in the community are currently unlinked and were picked up as a result of our proactive surveillance and screening, even though they are asymptomatic. Cases 57022 and 57012 were detected as a result of our Rostered Routine Testing of workers in the construction, marine and process sectors who are living outside the dormitories. Case 57022’s serological test result has come back positive, indicating a likely past infection [1].

   Epidemiological investigations of the cases 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 their household contacts to determine if they could have been infected by them.
   

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

3. Cases residing in dormitories: 41

Amongst the 41 cases residing in dormitories, 22 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 19 cases were detected through surveillance testing, such as our bi-weekly Rostered Routine Testing of workers living in dormitories and testing of those with acute respiratory infection (ARI) symptoms. 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 these cases are current or past infections. The serological test results for 22 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, 96% are imported or linked to known cases/ clusters, while the rest are pending contact tracing.

Links between previous cases found4.     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.     137 more cases of COVID-19 infection have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities. In all, 56,028 have fully recovered from the infection and have been discharged from hospitals or community care facilities.

6.     There are currently 52 confirmed cases who are still in hospital. Of these, most are stable or improving, and none is in the intensive care unit. 801 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.