21 More Cases Discharged, 21 New Cases of COVID-19 Infection Confirmed

          As of 22 September 2020, 12pm, the Ministry of Health (MOH) has confirmed and verified an additional 21 cases of COVID-19 infection in Singapore. The breakdown of the cases is as follows:

Summary of new cases

All new cases today are asymptomatic, and were detected from our proactive screening and surveillance.

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

Case 57761 is a Work Permit holder currently employed in Singapore who arrived from India on 10 September. She had been placed on 14-day Stay-Home Notice (SHN) upon arrival in Singapore, and was tested while serving SHN at a dedicated facility.

b) Cases in the community: 0
There are no cases in the community today.

Overall, the number of new cases in the community has remained stable at an average of 1 case per day in the past 2 weeks. The number of unlinked cases in the community has also remained stable at an average of fewer than 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: 20

Amongst the 20 cases residing in dormitories, 6 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 14 cases were detected through surveillance testing, such as our bi-weekly Rostered Routine Testing of workers living in dormitories. 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. 

Besides the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test, we have also conducted serological tests to determine if some of the cases are current or past infections [1]. The serological test results for 2 cases have come back positive so far, which indicate likely past infection. 

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, 95% are imported or linked to known cases/ clusters, while the rest are pending contact tracing.

Links between previous cases found

4.      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

5.      21 more cases of COVID-19 infection have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities. In all, 57,262 have fully recovered from the infection and have been discharged from hospitals or community care facilities.

6.      There are currently 37 confirmed cases who are still in hospital. Of these, most are stable or improving, and none is in the intensive care unit. 301 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
22 SEPTEMBER 2020

[1] 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.