72 More Cases Discharged, 41 New Cases of COVID-19 Infection Confirmed

           As of 31 August 2020, 12pm, the Ministry of Health (MOH) has confirmed and verified an additional 41 cases of COVID-19 infection in Singapore. The breakdown of the cases is as follows:

Summary of new cases
All new cases today are asymptomatic, and were detected from our proactive screening and surveillance. 

a) Imported cases: 7 (6 Singaporeans/ Permanent Residents, 1 Work Permit holder)
Amongst the 7 imported cases, 6 (Cases 56859, 56860, 56867, 56868, 56876 and 56881) are Singaporeans/ Permanent Residents who returned to Singapore from India between 17 August and 19 August, and Malaysia on 17 August. The remaining case (Case 56880) is a Work Permit holder currently employed in Singapore who arrived from India on 19 August. 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 at dedicated facilities.b) Cases in the community: 3 (1 Work Pass holder, 2 Work Permit holders)

All 3 cases in the community are currently unlinked and were detected as a result of our Rostered Routine Testing of workers in the construction, marine and process sectors who are living outside the dormitories. All of them are asymptomatic, and were detected through our proactive testing. The serological test result for Cases 56861 and 56863 have come back positive, which indicate likely past infection [1]. 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 2 cases per day in the week before, to an average of 3 per day in the past week. The number of unlinked cases in the community has remained stable at an average of 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: 31

Amongst the 31 cases residing in dormitories, 16 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 15 cases were detected through surveillance testing, such as our bi-weekly Rostered Routine Testing of workers living in dormitories and testing of those with acute respiratory infection (ARI) symptoms. 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.

Besides the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test, we have also conducted serological tests to determine if some of these cases are current or past infections. The serological test results for 11 cases have come back positive so far, which indicate likely past infections.

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, 85% are imported or linked to known cases/ clusters, while the rest are pending contact tracing.

4.           MOH has been informed that a care staff who previously worked at Lee Ah Mooi Old Age Home (148A Silat Avenue) has tested positive for COVID-19 infection on 30 August 2020 in the Philippines. Her last day at the nursing home was 26 August, and she had not displayed any ARI symptoms while she was at work. As a precautionary measure, MOH and the Agency for Integrated Care (AIC) have worked with Lee Ah Mooi Old Age Home (Silat) to test 90 staff and residents who were identified as possible contacts of the case. The test results of all 90 individuals have come back negative for COVID-19.

Links between previous cases found5.          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 cases6.          72 more cases of COVID-19 infection have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities. In all, 55,658 have fully recovered from the infection and have been discharged from hospitals or community care facilities.

7.           There are currently 78 confirmed cases who are still in hospital. Of these, most are stable or improving, and none is in the intensive care unit. 1,049 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.

[1] Cases whose serological tests are positive are likely to have a past infection, and could be shedding minute fragments of the virus RNA picked by the PCR test, which were no longer transmissible and infective to others.