198 More Cases Discharged, 94 New Cases of COVID-19 Infection Confirmed

          As of 28 August 2020, 12pm, the Ministry of Health (MOH) has confirmed and verified an additional 94 cases of COVID-19 infection in Singapore. The breakdown of the cases is as follows:

Summary of new cases

a)            Imported cases: 10 (7 Singaporeans/Permanent Residents, 1 Dependant’s Pass holder, 1 Long-Term Visit Pass holder, 1 Short-Term Visit Pass holder)

Amongst the 10 imported cases, 7 (Cases 56694, 56695, 56696, 56697, 56704, 56745 and 56750) are Singaporeans/ Permanent Residents who returned to Singapore from India between 16 August and 18 August. Another 2 (Cases 56685 and 56690) are Dependant’s Pass and Long-Term Pass holders who arrived from India on 12 August and 16 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.

The remaining case (Case 56726) is a Short-Term Visit Pass holder who was allowed entry into Singapore as she has been seeking medical treatment here. She was conveyed directly to the hospital upon arrival in Singapore.

b)            Cases in the community: 4 (4 Singaporeans)

Of the 4 cases in the community, 3 had already been placed on quarantine earlier. 1 of the cases is asymptomatic, and was detected through our proactive testing.

3 of the community cases today are linked to previous cases. Cases 56743, 56744 and 56746 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.

There is 1 case in the community who is currently unlinked. Case 56740 was detected under our enhanced community testing to test all individuals aged 13 and above who are diagnosed with acute respiratory infection (ARI) at first presentation to a doctor. This allows us to identify infected individuals early and to quickly contain further spread.

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 her household contacts to determine if she could have been infected by them.

Overall, the number of new cases in the community has remained stable at an average of 2 cases per day in the past 2 weeks. The number of unlinked cases in the community has also 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: 80

Amongst the 80 cases residing in dormitories, 70 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 10 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.

58 of the cases residing in dormitories today are from Sungei Tengah Lodge, who had all been placed on quarantine earlier. The vast majority of them were tested during quarantine to determine their status, or picked up through Rostered Routine Testing. Following the detection of cases at Sungei Tengah Lodge¹, we had placed about 4,500 workers on quarantine, and tested about 3,000 of them so far. We expect the number of cases from the dormitory to continue to be high in the coming days as we complete testing of the remaining quarantined workers.

Besides the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test, we have also conducted serological tests to determine if some of the cases residing in dormitories are current or past infections.² The serological test results for 8 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, 97% are imported or linked to known cases/ clusters, while the rest are pending contact tracing.

4.            MOH has been monitoring existing clusters for any further transmission. As there have been no more cases linked to Bukit Panjang Integrated Transport Hub (15 Petir Road) for the past two incubation periods (i.e. 28 days), the cluster has now been closed.

Links between previous cases found

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.            198 more cases of COVID-19 infection have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities. In all, 55,337 have fully recovered from the infection and have been discharged from hospitals or community care facilities.

7.            There are currently 71 confirmed cases who are still in hospital. Of these, most are stable or improving, and none is in the intensive care unit. 1,231 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
28 AUGUST 2020

^[1] Sungei Tengah Lodge was reported as a new cluster by MOH on 22 August 2020.
^[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.