139 More Cases Discharged, 54 New Cases of COVID-19 Infection Confirmed

              As of 30 August 2020, 12pm, the Ministry of Health (MOH) has confirmed and verified an additional 54 cases of COVID-19 infection in Singapore. The breakdown of the cases is as follows:

Summary of new cases

Amongst the new cases today, 47 are asymptomatic, and were detected from our proactive screening and surveillance, while 7 were symptomatic.

a) Imported cases: 7 (5 Singaporeans/ Permanent Residents, 1 Work Permit holder, 1 Dependant’s Pass holder)

Amongst the 7 imported cases, 5 (Cases 56816, 56821, 56822, 56842 and 56852) are Singaporeans/ Permanent Residents who returned to Singapore from Bangladesh on 17 August, India on 18 August and 22 August, the Philippines on 18 August and UAE on 8 August [1]. Another case (Case 56824) is a Work Permit holder currently employed in Singapore who arrived from the Philippines on 18 August. The remaining case (Case 56820) is a Dependant’s Pass holder who arrived from Pakistan on 18 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. b) Cases in the community: 8 (7 Singaporeans, 1 Work Pass holder)

Of the 8 cases in the community, 2 were picked up as a result of our proactive surveillance and screening, and 6 had already been placed on quarantine earlier. 3 of the cases are asymptomatic, and were detected through our proactive testing7 of the community cases today are linked to previous cases or clusters. Of these, 6 cases had been identified as contacts of previously confirmed cases, and had been placed on quarantine earlier. They were tested during quarantine to determine their status. Amongst them, 5 cases (Cases 56823, 56827, 56830, 56831 and 56832) are part of a family cluster involving individuals across 2 households. These individuals had participated in family gatherings, and investigations are ongoing to see if there were any breaches of safe distancing rules. We take a serious view of such breaches and will not hesitate to take enforcement actions against any offenders.Another case (Case 56826) is a colleague of Case 56184 at SLR Revolution at Excelsior Shopping Centre (5 Coleman Street), and had earlier been placed on quarantine. As a precautionary measure following the detection of an earlier case (Case 56626) who had visited the shop during Case 56184’s infectious period, MOH has identified and contacted 240 individuals who had visited SLR Revolution at Excelsior Shopping Centre between 15 August and 18 August 2020, and facilitated COVID-19 testing for all of them, even though the risk of infection for visitors is assessed to be low. So far, a total of 224 individuals have been swabbed and the results are pending. MOH is facilitating testing for the remaining individuals.The remaining case (Case 56829) had gone to see a General Practitioner under the Swab and Send Home (SASH) Programme on 27 August and was diagnosed with acute respiratory infection (ARI), and was administered with a swab  test. Before the test result was ready, Case 56828 was separately identified as a close contact of Case 56740 and was placed on quarantine on 28 August. The test result from the clinic subsequently confirmed that this was a positive case.There is 1 case in the community who is currently unlinked. Case 56851 was detected as a result of our Rostered Routine Testing of workers in the construction, marine and process sectors who are living outside the dormitories. Epidemiological investigations of the case are in progress. In the meantime, all the identified close contacts of the case 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 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 remained stable at an average of 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: 39

Amongst the 39 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 17 cases were detected through surveillance testing, such as our bi-weekly Rostered Routine Testing of workers living in dormitories and testing of those with 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 [2].The serological test results for 14 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, 91% 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 cases5.            139 more cases of COVID-19 infection have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities. In all, 55,586 have fully recovered from the infection and have been discharged from hospitals or community care facilities.

6.               There are currently 74 confirmed cases who are still in hospital. Of these, most are stable or improving, and none is in the intensive care unit. 1,084 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] Case 56816 had returned to Singapore on 8 August and served SHN at a dedicated facility with her parent. She was subsequently placed on quarantine when her parent was tested positive for COVID-19. Due to an administrative error, this case had not been included in the case count earlier although public health actions commenced from the date of confirmation.

[2] 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.