169 More Cases Discharged; 481 New Cases of COVID-19 Infection Confirmed

                 As of 26 July 2020, 12pm, the Ministry of Health (MOH) has confirmed and verified an additional 481 cases of COVID-19 infection in Singapore. The breakdown of the cases is as follows:

a)    Imported cases: 4 (2 Singaporeans/Permanent Residents, 2 Work Permit holders)
 
Amongst the 4 imported cases, 2 (Cases 50010 and 50028) are Singaporeans/ Permanent Residents who returned to Singapore from Indonesia on 24 July. The remaining 2 cases are Work Permit holders who arrived from the Philippines on 14 July. 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.

b)    Cases in the community: 5 (1 Work Pass holder, 4 Work Permit holders)

Of the 5 cases in the community, 3 were picked up as a result of our proactive surveillance and screening, and 2 had already been placed on quarantine earlier. All 5 cases are asymptomatic, and were detected through our proactive testing.
 
2 of the community cases today are linked to previous cases or clusters. Both cases (Cases 50443 and 50444) had been identified as contacts of previously confirmed cases, and had been placed on quarantine earlier. They were tested during quarantine to determine their status.  
 
3 of the community cases are currently unlinked. All 3 (Cases 50190, 50191 and 50192) were detected as a result of our periodic screening of workers in essential services who are living outside the dormitories, even though they are asymptomatic.
 
Epidemiological investigations of the unlinked cases are in progress. In the meantime, all the 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 their household contacts to determine if they could have been infected by them.
 
Overall, the number of new cases in the community has decreased, from an average of 10 cases per day in the week before, to an average of 7 per day in the past week. The number of unlinked cases in the community has also decreased, from an average of 5 cases per day in the week before, to an average of 4 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: 472
 
We continue to pick up 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.
 
The Inter-agency Taskforce is on track to clear all the dormitories by the beginning of August 2020, with the exception of 17 standalone blocks in 8 Purpose Built Dormitories, which serve as quarantine facilities for 28,000 workers still serving out their isolation period. This last batch of workers come from dormitories with a relatively high prevalence of COVID-19, and will be subject to a final test before they complete their isolation periods. We therefore expect the daily case counts to be high for the coming two weeks, 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, 98% are linked to known clusters, while the rest are pending contact tracing.

Links between previous cases found

4.               In the past week (19 July to 25 July), MOH has uncovered links for 1 previously unlinked case in the community.

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.               169 more cases of COVID-19 infection have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities. In all, 45,521 have fully recovered from the infection and have been discharged from hospitals or community care facilities.

7.               There are currently 173 confirmed cases who are still in hospital. Of these, most are stable or improving, and none is in the intensive care unit. 4,648 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
26 JULY 2020