32 MORE CASES DISCHARGED, 11 NEW CASES OF COVID-19 INFECTION CONFIRMED

1.      As of 18 September 2020, 12pm, the Ministry of Health (MOH) has confirmed and verified an additional 11 cases of COVID-19 infection in Singapore. The breakdown of the cases is as follows:

Summary of new cases

Amongst the new cases today, 10 are asymptomatic, and were detected from our proactive screening and surveillance, while 1 was symptomatic.

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

Case 57675 is a Work Permit holder currently employed in Singapore who arrived from India on 6 September. She had been placed on 14-day Stay-Home Notice (SHN) upon arrival in Singapore, and was tested while serving her SHN at a dedicated facility.

b)      Cases in the community: 1 (1 Singaporean)

There is 1 case in the community today who is currently unlinked. Case 57679 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 his identified close contacts 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 his household contacts to determine if he could have been infected by them.

Overall, the number of new cases in the community has decreased, from an average of 2 cases per day in the week before, to an average of 1 per day in the past week. The number of unlinked cases in the community has remained stable at 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: 9

Amongst the 9 cases residing in dormitories, 5 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 4 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.

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, 73% 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.      32 more cases of COVID-19 infection have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities. In all, 57,071 have fully recovered from the infection and have been discharged from hospitals or community care facilities.

6.      There are currently 38 confirmed cases who are still in hospital. Of these, most are stable or improving, and none is in the intensive care unit. 407 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.