82 More Cases Discharged, 34 New Cases of COVID-19 Infection Confirmed

1.     As of 15 September 2020, 12pm, the Ministry of Health (MOH) has confirmed and verified an additional 34 cases of COVID-19 infection in Singapore. The breakdown of the cases is as follows:

Summary of new cases

Amongst the new cases today, 32 are asymptomatic, and were detected from our proactive screening and surveillance, while 2 were symptomatic.

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

   
   

   Amongst the 6 imported cases, 2 (Cases 57613 and 57619) are Singapore Permanent Residents who returned to Singapore from India on 3 September. Another 2 (Cases 57617 and 57618) are Work Pass/ Work Permit holders currently employed in Singapore who arrived from India on 3 September. Another 2 cases (Cases 57609 and 57616) are Dependant’s Pass holders who arrived from India on 30 August and 3 September.

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

2. Cases in the community: 0

   There are no cases in the community today.

   Overall, the number of new cases in the community has decreased, from an average of 2 cases per day in the week before, to an average of 1 per day in the past week. The number of unlinked cases in the community has also decreased, from an average of 2 cases per day in the week before, to an average of 1 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. Cases residing in dormitories: 28

Amongst the 28 cases residing in dormitories, 13 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 the cases are current or past infections. [1]. The serological test results for 14 cases have come back positive so far, which indicate likely past infection.

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, 88% 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.     82 more cases of COVID-19 infection have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities. In all, 56,884 have fully recovered from the infection and have been discharged from hospitals or community care facilities.

6.     There are currently 51 confirmed cases who are still in hospital. Of these, most are stable or improving, and none is in the intensive care unit. 526 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.