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230 MORE CASES DISCHARGED, 31 NEW CASES OF COVID-19 INFECTION CONFIRMED

1.      As of 25 August 2020, 12pm, the Ministry of Health (MOH) has confirmed and verified an additional 31 cases of COVID-19 infection in Singapore. The breakdown of the cases is as follows:

Summary of new cases

Already in quarantine/ isolation before detection

Detected from surveillance

Total

Imported cases

1

0

1

Cases in the community

0

0

0

Cases residing in dormitories

26

4

30

a)      Imported cases: 1 (1 Permanent Resident)

There is 1 imported case today. Case 56496 is a Singapore Permanent Resident who returned to Singapore from India on 13 August. She had been placed on 14-day Stay-Home Notice (SHN) upon arrival in Singapore, and was tested while she was serving SHN at a dedicated facility.

b)      Cases in the community: 0

There are no cases in the community today.

Overall, the number of new cases in the community has remained stable at an average of 2 cases per day in the past 2 weeks. The number of unlinked cases in the community has also 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: 30

Amongst the 30 cases residing in dormitories, 26 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 4 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.1 The serological test results for 2 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, 94% 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.      230 more cases of COVID-19 infection have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities. In all, 54,816 have fully recovered from the infection and have been discharged from hospitals or community care facilities.

6.      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. 1,514 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.

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