425 More Cases Discharged, 876 New Cases of COVID-19 Infection Confirmed

1.     As of 10 May 2020, 12pm, the Ministry of Health (MOH) has confirmed and verified an additional 876 cases of COVID-19 infection in Singapore. The breakdown is as follows:

1. Imported cases: 1

   There is 1 imported case today who had been placed on Stay-Home Notice upon arrival in Singapore.

2. Cases in the community: 4 (2 Singaporeans/Permanent Residents, 2 Work Passes)

   The number of new cases in the community has decreased, from an average of 11 cases per day in the week before, to an average of 9 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.

3. Work Permit holders (residing outside dormitories): 11

   The number of new cases amongst Work Permit holders residing outside dormitories has decreased, from an average of 9 cases per day in the week before, to an average of 8 per day in the past week. 

4. Work Permit holders (residing in dormitories): 860

The number of new cases from the testing of workers with acute respiratory infection (ARI) symptoms and their contacts remains stable.  But the number of daily cases continues to rise as we are also testing the workers who are well and asymptomatic, as part of our process to verify and test the status of every worker. We had started this intensive testing at the purpose-built dormitories, and are now doing so for the factory-converted dormitories.

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.

4.     MOH regularly reviews the laboratory tests and recently found that 33 cases[1] from a laboratory were false positives, due to an apparatus calibration issue for one of its test kits. Subsequent retesting at the National Public Health Laboratory confirmed that these were negative cases. There were no false negative results discovered from our review. MOH has taken immediate actions to rectify the situation. The laboratory has stopped all tests and is working to resolve the calibration issue.

5.     In addition, there were two results[2] that had been equivocal, and were subsequently verified to be negative upon re-testing.

6.     MOH has been monitoring existing clusters for any further transmission. As there have been no more cases linked to the construction site at 6 Battery Road for the past two incubation periods (i.e. 28 days), the cluster has now been closed.

Links between previous cases found

7.     In the past week (3 May to 9 May), MOH has uncovered links for 273 previously unlinked cases.

8.     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

9.     425 more cases of COVID-19 infection have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities. In all, 2,721 have fully recovered from the infection and have been discharged from hospitals or community care facilities.

10.     There are currently 1,097 confirmed cases who are still in hospital. Of these, most are stable or improving, and 22 are in critical condition in the intensive care unit. 19,498 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. 20 have passed away from complications due to COVID-19 infection.

[1] Cases 20844, 20847, 20850, 20853, 20854, 20855, 20856, 20973, 21018, 21021, 21024, 21111, 21120, 21163, 21166, 21170, 21370, 21456, 21581, 21595, 21596, 21598, 21599, 21600, 21601, 21602, 21603, 21604, 21605, 21606, 21607, 21608 and 21609.

[2] All equivocal results are sent to the National Public Health Laboratory for re-testing. As a precautionary measure, we had categorised Cases 18669 and 19360 as positive while pending verification, and isolated them.