13 More Cases Discharged, 12 New Cases of COVID-19 Infection Confirmed

          As of 4 October 2020, 12pm, the Ministry of Health (MOH) has confirmed and verified an additional 12 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 2 were symptomatic.

a) Imported cases: 6 (2 Permanent Residents, 1 Work Pass holder, 2 Work Permit holders, 1 Dependant’s Pass holder)

Amongst the 6 imported cases, 2 (Cases 57954 and 57960) are Singapore Permanent Residents who returned to Singapore from India on 22 September and 23 September. Another 3 (Cases 57949, 57951 and 57952) are Work Pass/ Work Permit holders currently employed in Singapore who arrived from the Netherlands and the Philippines on 22 September, and Indonesia on 1 October. The remaining case (Case 57950) is a Dependant’s Pass holder who arrived from Japan on 22 September.

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

b) Cases in the community: 2 (1 Work Pass holder, 1 Work Permit holder)

There are 2 cases in the community today who are currently unlinked. Case 57953 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. Case 57961 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.

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 they could have been infected by them.

Overall, the number of new cases in the community has increased from an average of fewer than 1 case per day in the week before, to an average of 2 cases in the past week. The number of unlinked cases in the community has also increased from an average of fewer than 1 case per day in the week before, to an average of 1 case 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: 4

All 4 cases residing in dormitories 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 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, 67% 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.       13 more cases of COVID-19 infection have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities. In all, 57,575 have fully recovered from the infection and have been discharged from hospitals or community care facilities.

6.       There are currently 43 confirmed cases who are still in hospital. Of these, most are stable or improving, and none is in the intensive care unit. 167 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
4 OCTOBER 2020