Six-month low of 18 new COVID cases in Singapore, all asymptomatic

SINGAPORE — The Ministry of Health (MOH) confirmed a six-month low of 18 new COVID-19 cases in Singapore as of Thursday (17 September), bringing the country’s total to 57,532.

It is the lowest daily tally since 16 March, when 17 cases were reported.

All 18 new cases are asymptomatic and were proactively detected, the MOH said.

Of them, one is classified as a community case, while two are imported. The remaining 15 cases are foreign workers living in dormitories, of which 10 had been identified earlier as contacts of previous cases, and had already been quarantined.

Overall, 11 per cent of cases have no established links. Separately, the MOH on Thursday added Sim Lim Square to a list of public venues visited by community cases while infectious.

The lone community case, currently unlinked, was detected via rostered routine testing of workers in the construction, marine, and process sectors who are living outside the dorms, said the MOH.

Epidemiological investigations of the case are in progress while all his identified close contacts have been isolated and placed on quarantine, it added.

They will be tested at the start and end of their quarantine period. Serological tests will also be conducted for his household contacts to determine if he could have been infected by them.

The MOH said the number of new cases in the community has decreased, from an average of two cases per day in the week before, to an average of one per day in the past week.

It added that the number of unlinked cases in the community has remained stable at fewer than one case per day in the past two weeks.

Of the imported cases, one is a work pass holder currently employed in Singapore who arrived from France on 4 September, while the other is a dependant’s pass holder who arrived from India on 5 September.

Both of them had been placed on the 14-day stay-home notice upon their arrival here and were tested while serving their notice at dedicated facilities.

5 cases in dorms detected via surveillance testing

Amongst the 15 cases residing in dorms, 10 had been identified earlier as contacts of previous cases and were tested during quarantine, said the MOH.

The remaining five cases were detected via surveillance testing, such as the rostered routine testing of workers living in dorms, it added.

Besides the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test, administered via swabbing, serological tests were also conducted to determine if some of the cases are current or past infections.

“The serological test results for three cases have come back positive so far, which indicate likely past infection,” said the MOH.

Of Singapore’s COVID-19 tally, 54,280 – or 94.3 per cent – are foreign workers living in dorms.

99% of total cases have recovered

With 84 more patients discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities on Thursday, 57,039 cases – or 99 per cent of the total – have fully recovered from the infection.

Most of the 43 hospitalised cases are stable or improving, while none is in critical condition in the intensive care unit.

A total of 423 patients with mild symptoms or are clinically well but still test positive are isolated and cared for at community facilities.

Apart from 27 patients who have died from COVID-19 complications, 15 others who tested positive for the virus were determined to have died from unrelated causes, including three whose deaths were attributed to a heart attack and another four, whose deaths were attributed to coronary heart disease.

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