1,018 More Cases Discharged; 373 New Cases of Covid-19 Infection Confirmed

                As of 28 May 2020, 12pm, the Ministry of Health (MOH) has confirmed and verified an additional 373 cases of COVID-19 infection in Singapore. The breakdown is as follows:

  a)  Imported cases: 0

There are no imported cases today.

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

The number of new cases in the community has decreased, from an average of 6 cases per day in the week before, to an average of 5 per day in the past week. The number of unlinked cases in the community has remained stable at an average of 2 per day in the past two weeks. We will continue to closely monitor these numbers, as well as the cases detected through our surveillance programme.

Today’s community case was picked up through our active screening of preschool staff, and was asymptomatic. MOH will conduct a serological test to determine if this was a past or current infection.

  c)  Cases residing in dormitories: 372

We continue to pick up many cases amongst Work Permit holders residing in dormitories, including in factory-converted dormitories, because of extensive testing in these premises, as part of our process to verify and test the status of all workers.

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, 99% are linked to known clusters, while the rest are pending contact tracing.

4.             More than 39,000 preschool staff^[1] have so far been tested as part of our proactive screening. Of these, 13 staff had tested positive using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test, which is a sensitive test that could pick up minute fragments of the COVID-19 virus ribonucleic acid (RNA). To determine if these were past or current infections, MOH has done an epidemiological study of these cases. Of the 13 cases, 11 of their serological tests have come back positive, which is indicative of past infections. These individuals were unlikely to be infectious by the time they were tested during the recent screening, but could be shedding minute fragments of the virus RNA, which were no longer transmissible and infective to others. Two test results are pending, including today’s case.

Links between previous cases found

5.             In the past week (21 May to 27 May), MOH has uncovered links for 2 previously unlinked cases.

6.             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

7.             1,018 more cases of COVID-19 infection have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities. In all, 18,294 have fully recovered from the infection and have been discharged from hospitals or community care facilities.

8.             There are currently 510 confirmed cases who are still in hospital. Of these, most are stable or improving, and 7 are in critical condition in the intensive care unit. 14,422 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. 23 have passed away from complications due to COVID-19 infection.

^[1] Includes ECDA’s preschools, MOE kindergartens and pre-school sections in private education institutes.