The Ministry of Health (MOH) confirmed nine new Covid-19 cases in Singapore on Oct. 8, 2020.

This brings the total number of cases to 57,849.

Community cases

There are no new cases in the community.

Four dormitory cases

Of the new cases, four reside in dormitories.

Among the four cases, one had been identified earlier as a contact of previous cases and had already been quarantined to prevent further transmission.

He was tested during quarantine to determine his status.

The remaining three cases were detected through surveillance testing, such as the bi-weekly Rostered Routine Testing of workers living in dormitories.

This allows MOH to pick up cases early, including asymptomatic ones, so that they are able to ring-fence them quickly to prevent further transmission, by aggressively containing, tracing and isolating the close contacts.

Five imported cases

There are five imported cases reported today, all of whom are asymptomatic.

Among the five cases, one is a Singaporean who returned from Nepal on Sep. 25.

Two other cases are currently employed in Singapore.

One of them is an engineer who arrived from France on Oct. 5 on a short-term work project in Singapore, while the other arrived from Japan on Oct. 6.

The remaining two cases are crew members of a ship which arrived in Singapore from Malaysia on Sep. 23. They did not disembark from the ship, and were swabbed while quarantined on the ship.

They were all placed on 14-day Stay-Home Notice upon arrival in Singapore, and were tested while serving SHN at dedicated facilities.

44 discharged

44 more cases of Covid-19 infection have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities.

In all, 57,668 have fully recovered from the infection and have been discharged.

35 confirmed cases still in hospital, one in ICU

There are currently 35 confirmed cases who are still in hospital.

Of these, most are stable or improving, though one patient's health has deteriorated and they are now in critical condition in the intensive care unit.

119 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.

No new locations

No new locations were reported today.

MOH regularly updates a list of public places visited by confirmed cases for more than 30 minutes during their infectious period.

This is the latest list of locations visited by confirmed cases within the last two weeks:

Those who have been identified as close contacts of confirmed cases would already have been notified by MOH.

As a precautionary measure, those who had been at these locations during the specified timings should monitor their health closely for 14 days from their date of visit.

They should see a doctor promptly if they develop symptoms of acute respiratory infection (such as cough, sore throat and runny nose), as well as fever and loss of taste or smell, and inform the doctor of their exposure history.

MOH also said that there is no need to avoid places where confirmed cases of Covid-19 have been. The National Environment Agency will engage the management of affected premises to provide guidance on cleaning and disinfection.

Top image via NUHS/Facebook