246 More Cases Discharged, 170 New Cases of COVID-19 Infection Confirmed

          As of 11 July 2020, 12pm, the Ministry of Health (MOH) has confirmed and verified an additional 170 cases of COVID-19 infection in Singapore. The breakdown is as follows:

a)            Imported cases: 1 (1 Work Pass holder)

There is an imported case today involving an Indian national who returned to Singapore from India on 6 July. She is a Work Pass holder who is currently employed in Singapore. She had been placed on 14-day Stay-Home Notice (SHN) upon arrival in Singapore, and had been tested while serving SHN.

b)            Cases in the community: 24 (7 Singaporeans, 6 Work Pass holders, 11 Work Permit holders)

Of the 24 cases in the community, 19 were picked up as a result of our proactive surveillance and screening, and 5 had already been placed on quarantine earlier. 20 of the cases are asymptomatic, and were all detected through our proactive testing.

15 of the community cases today are linked to previous cases or clusters. Of these, 5 (Cases 45702, 45771, 45779, 45781 and 45821) had been identified as contacts of previously confirmed cases, and had been tested during their quarantine to determine their status. The rest of the cases were detected through our proactive testing, even though they are all asymptomatic. 9 of them were swabbed as they work in essential services, and the remaining case (Case 45672) was tested as part of our efforts to screen individuals working in frontline COVID-19 operations.

9 of the community cases are currently unlinked. All of them are asymptomatic, and were identified from our periodic screening of workers in essential services who are living outside the dormitories.

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 increased, from an average of 9 cases per day in the week before, to an average of 19 per day in the past week. The number of unlinked cases in the community has also increased, from an average of 5 cases per day in the week before, to an average of 9 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: 145

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, 94% are linked to known clusters, while the rest are pending contact tracing.

Links between previous cases found

4.            In the past week (4 July to 10 July), MOH has uncovered links for 5 previously unlinked cases.

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.            246 more cases of COVID-19 infection have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities. In all, 42,026 have fully recovered from the infection and have been discharged from hospitals or community care facilities.

7.            There are currently 192 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. 3,539 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. 26 have passed away from complications due to COVID-19 infection.

MINISTRY OF HEALTH
11 JULY 2020