220 More Cases Discharged, 354 New Cases of COVID-19 Infection Confirmed

          As of 23 July 2020, 12pm, the Ministry of Health (MOH) has confirmed and verified an additional 354 cases of COVID-19 infection in Singapore. The breakdown of the cases is as follows:

a)            Imported cases: 5 (2 Permanent Residents, 2 Work Pass holders, 1 Dependant’s Pass holder)

Amongst the imported cases, 2 (Cases 48880 and 48881) are Permanent Residents who returned to Singapore from India on 12 July. Another 2 (Cases 48832 and 48900) are Work Pass holders who are currently employed in Singapore. They arrived in Singapore from India on 11 July and 12 July. The remaining case (Case 48831) is a Dependant’s Pass holder who arrived from India on 11 July. 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.

 b)            Cases in the community: 8 (4 Singaporeans, 4 Work Permit holders)

Of the 8 cases in the community, 4 were picked up as a result of our proactive surveillance and screening, and 2 had already been placed on quarantine earlier. 6 of the cases are asymptomatic, and were detected through our proactive testing.

2 of the community cases today are linked to previous cases or clusters. Both (Cases 48830 and 49177) had been identified as contacts of a previously confirmed case, and had been placed on quarantine earlier. They were tested during quarantine to determine their status, even though they are asymptomatic.

6 of the community cases are currently unlinked. Of these, 3 (Cases 48879, 48883 and 48884) were detected from our proactive screening of workers in essential services who are living outside the dormitories, even though they are asymptomatic. The serological test results for Cases 48883 and 48884 have come back positive, which indicate likely past infections. The test result for the remaining case is pending. Another case (Case 48979) was swabbed as part of our efforts to screen individuals working in frontline COVID-19 operations, and had been detected before symptoms onset. The remaining 2 cases were tested as part of our community testing. Case 48916 was tested under our enhanced community testing to test all individuals aged 13 and above who are diagnosed with acute respiratory infection at first presentation to a doctor. The remaining case (Case 48953) is asymptomatic, but was referred for a COVID-19 test when she had visited a polyclinic to collect her medication for a pre-existing respiratory condition.

Epidemiological investigations of the unlinked 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 these cases could have been infected by them.

Overall, the number of new cases in the community has decreased, from an average of 12 cases per day in the week before, to an average of 9 per day in the past week. The number of unlinked cases in the community has also decreased, from an average of 7 cases per day in the week before, to an average of 5 per day in the past week. We will continue to closely monitor these numbers, as well as the cases detected through our surveillance programme.

 c)            Cases residing in dormitories: 341

We continue to pick up cases amongst Work Permit holders residing in dormitories, including in factory-converted dormitories, because of extensive testing in these premises, as part of our process to verify and test the status of all workers.

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, 98% are linked to known clusters, while the rest are pending contact tracing.

Links between previous cases found

4.            In the past week (16 July to 22 July), MOH has uncovered links for 2 previously unlinked cases in the community.

5.            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

6.            220 more cases of COVID-19 infection have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities. In all, 45,015 have fully recovered from the infection and have been discharged from hospitals or community care facilities.

7.            There are currently 137 confirmed cases who are still in hospital. Of these, most are stable or improving, and none is in the intensive care unit. 3,919 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.

MINISTRY OF HEALTH
23 JULY 2020