1 NEW CASE OF LOCALLY TRANSMITTED COVID-19 INFECTION

1.      As of 11 March 2021, 12pm, the Ministry of Health (MOH) has confirmed and verified that there is 1 new case of locally transmitted COVID-19 infection. The case is in the community, and there are no new cases in the dormitories. There are 7 imported cases, who had already been placed on Stay-Home Notice (SHN) upon arrival in Singapore. Amongst the new cases today, 7 are asymptomatic, and were detected from our proactive screening and surveillance, while 1 was symptomatic. 

Summary of new cases

2.      Overall, the number of new cases in the community has decreased from 3 cases in the week before to 2 cases in the past week. The number of unlinked cases in the community has remained stable at 2 cases per week in the past 2 weeks. We will continue to closely monitor these numbers, as well as the cases detected through our surveillance programme.

3.      Amongst the 72 confirmed cases reported from 5 March to 11 March, 35 cases have tested positive for their serology tests, 28 have tested negative, and 9 serology test results are pending.

Case Details

a) Cases in the community: 1

There is 1 case in the community today who is currently unlinked. 

Case 60818 is a 37 year-old female Indonesian national who is a foreign domestic worker. She arrived in Singapore on 20 January 2021 and served SHN at a dedicated facility until 3 February. Her swab done on 2 February during SHN was negative for COVID-19. Her COVID-19 pre-departure test taken in Indonesia on 18 January was also negative. 

She is asymptomatic, and was detected when she was tested on 9 March as part of MOH’s investigation into Case 60666¹. As an added precaution, MOH tested all attendees of the Settling in Programme for foreign domestic workers on 4 February, which both Cases 60666 and 60818 attended, even though they were not close contacts. Her test result came back positive for COVID-19 infection on 9 March, and she was conveyed in an ambulance to the National Centre for Infectious Diseases. Her serological test result has come back positive, which indicates a likely past infection. However as we are unable to definitively confirm her date of infection, we will take all the necessary public health actions as a precautionary measure.

Based on our epidemiological investigations, Cases 60666 and 60818 are likely to have been separately infected earlier and there is currently no evidence that the 2 cases are linked. 

b) Cases residing in dormitories: 0

There are no cases residing in dormitories today. 

c) Imported cases: 7

Amongst the 7 imported cases, 

• 1 (Case 60807) is a Singaporean who returned from Qatar.
• 1 (Case 60803) is a Student’s Pass holder who arrived from India.
• 1 (Case 60816) is a Long-Term Visit Pass holder who arrived from India.
• 4 are Work Permit holders who arrived from Bangladesh, India and Malaysia.

They had all already been placed on SHN upon arrival in Singapore and were tested while serving SHN. 

4.      Please refer to the Annexes and MOH’s daily Situation Report (www.moh.gov.sg/covid-19/situation-report) for details. 

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.

Update on condition of confirmed cases

6.      28 more cases of COVID-19 infection have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities. In all, 59,939 have fully recovered from the infection and have been discharged from hospitals or community care facilities. 

7.      There are currently 21 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. 81 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. 29 have passed away from complications due to COVID-19 infection.

[1] Case 60666 is a 35 year-old female Indonesian national who is a foreign domestic worker. She tested positive for COVID-19 infection on 4 March, but an additional test taken by the National Public Health Laboratory on 5 March came back negative. Her serological test result was positive, which indicates a likely past infection.