31 more cases discharged, 75 new cases of Covid-19 infection confirmed

      As of 9 September 2020, 12pm, the Ministry of Health (MOH) has confirmed and verified an additional 75 cases of COVID-19 infection in Singapore. The breakdown of the cases is as follows:

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

a) Imported cases: 14 (2 Singaporeans, 7 Permanent Residents, 1 Work Pass holder, 3 Work Permit holders, 1 Student’s Pass holder)

Amongst the 14 imported cases, 2 (Cases 57272 and 57277) are Singaporeans, and 7 (Cases 57271, 57278, 57295, 57296, 57297, 57298 and 57299) are Singapore Permanent Residents who returned to Singapore from India between 24 August and 28 August, and Ghana on 28 August. Another 4 (Cases 57241, 57242, 57243 and 57290) are Work Pass/ Work Permit holders currently employed in Singapore who arrived from the Philippines on 28 August and India on 28 August. The remaining case (Case 57287) is a Student’s Pass holder who arrived from Kazakhstan on 29 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.

b) Cases in the community: 1 (1 Work Permit holder)

There is 1 case in the community today who is linked to a cluster. Case 57300 was detected as a result of our Rostered Routine Testing of workers in the construction, marine and process sectors who are living outside the dormitories, even though he is asymptomatic.

Overall, the number of new cases in the community has decreased, from an average of 3 cases per day in the week before, to an average of 2 per day in the past week. The number of unlinked cases in the community has also decreased, from an average of 2 cases per day in the week before, to an average of 1 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: 60

Amongst the 60 cases residing in dormitories, 29 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 31 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.

Of the cases residing in dormitories today, 31 are from Westlite Toh Guan dormitory, the vast majority of whom had been placed on quarantine earlier and were tested during quarantine to determine their status. The remaining cases were detected through surveillance testing, such as our bi-weekly Rostered Routine Testing.

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 22 cases have come back positive so far, which indicate likely past infections.

2.      Please refer to the Annex A [PDF, 81.7 KB] for more details.

3.      Of the new cases, 92% 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 [PDF, 80.4 KB] and Annex C [PDF, 218 KB] for details.

Update on condition of confirmed cases

5.      31 more cases of COVID-19 infection have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities. In all, 56,492 have fully recovered from the infection and have been discharged from hospitals or community care facilities.

6.      There are currently 34 confirmed cases who are still in hospital. Of these, most are stable or improving, and none is in the intensive care unit. 613 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
9 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.