269 More Cases Discharged, 50 Cases of COVID-19 Infection Confirmed

1.     As of 22 August 2020, 12pm, the Ministry of Health (MOH) has confirmed and verified an additional 50 cases of COVID-19 infection in Singapore. The breakdown of the cases is as follows:

1. Imported cases: 5 (1 Singaporean, 1 Work Permit holder, 2 Dependant’s Pass holders, 1 Student’s Pass holder)

   
   

   Amongst the 5 imported cases, 1 (Case 56322) is a Singaporean who returned to Singapore from Iran on 10 August. Another 2 (Cases 56319 and 56330) are Dependant’s Pass holders who arrived from India and the Netherlands on 10 August. Another case (Case 56329) is a Work Permit holder currently employed in Singapore who arrived from the Philippines on 9 August. The remaining case (Case 56308) is a Student’s Pass holder who arrived from India on 8 August.

   All the cases had been placed on 14-day Stay-Home Notice (SHN) upon arrival in Singapore, and were serving their SHN at dedicated facilities. They had been tested while serving their SHN.

2. Cases in the community: 2 (2 Singaporeans)

   
   

   Both cases in the community are currently unlinked. Case 56320 had been tested after being admitted to a hospital for another medical condition. Case 56323 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 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 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.

3. Cases residing in dormitories: 43

The Inter-agency Taskforce has completed the testing of all workers in the dormitories. There are currently about 13,700 workers who are still serving out their quarantine period. These workers will be tested when their quarantine ends, and we expect the case counts to remain high in the coming days, before tapering down thereafter.

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

4.     MOH has completed our screening and testing of all staff in the public bus industry who work at depots and interchanges. This is a precautionary measure after we detected some cases at Bukit Panjang Integrated Transport Hub. In all, more than 14,800 staff and close contacts of the cases had been tested using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test between 23 July and 15 August and all have tested negative, except 10 which have been announced earlier.

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.     269 more cases of COVID-19 infection have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities. In all, 53,920 have fully recovered from the infection and have been discharged from hospitals or community care facilities.

7.     There are currently 81 confirmed cases who are still in hospital. Of these, most are stable or improving, and none is in the intensive care unit. 2,238 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.