2 New Cases of Locally Transmitted COVID-19 Infection

             As of 14 October 2020, 12pm, the Ministry of Health (MOH) has confirmed and verified 2 new cases of locally transmitted COVID-19 infection. Both are in the community, and there are no new cases in the dormitories. In addition, there are 3 imported cases, who had all been placed on Stay-Home Notice (SHN) upon arrival. Amongst the new cases today, 1 is asymptomatic, and was detected from our proactive screening and surveillance, while 4 were symptomatic. 

Summary of new cases

2.     Overall, the number of new cases in the community has decreased from an average of 1 case per day in the week before, to an average of fewer than 1 per day in the past week. The number of unlinked cases in the community has also decreased from an average of fewer than 1 case per day 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.        All the new cases today are imported or linked to known cases/ clusters.

Case Details

a) Cases in the community: 2

There are 2 cases in the community today who are contacts of a previously confirmed case. Cases 58045 and 58047 had earlier been identified as contacts of Case 57947. All 3 cases are family members residing in the same household. Cases 58045 and 58047 were placed on quarantine from 3 October, after Case 57947 was confirmed to have COVID-19 infection. They were swabbed on 3 October and both tested negative for COVID-19. They later developed symptoms during quarantine and subsequently tested positive on 13 October. Both cases are school students, and had last been at their respective schools on 2 October. 

b) Cases residing in dormitories: 0

There are no new cases residing in dormitories today.

c) Imported cases: 3

Amongst the 3 imported cases, 1 (Case 58043) is a Singaporean who returned from the UK. Another (Case 58044) is a Short-Term Visit Pass holder currently employed in Singapore who arrived from Russia. The remaining case (Case 58046) is a Student’s Pass holder who arrived from India. They had all been placed on SHN upon arrival in Singapore and were tested while serving SHN.

4.        Details of these trends can be found in MOH’s daily situation Report (www.moh.gov.sg/covid-19/situation-report).

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.

Links between previous cases found

6.        Further epidemiological investigations and contact tracing have uncovered links between previously announced and new cases. Please refer to Annex A and Annex B for details.

Update on condition of confirmed cases

7.         12 more cases of COVID-19 infection have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities. In all, 57,752 have fully recovered from the infection and have been discharged from hospitals or community care facilities.

8.         There are currently 39 confirmed cases who are still in hospital. Of these, most are stable or improving, and none is in the intensive care unit. 70 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. 28 have passed away from complications due to COVID-19 infection.