No new locations visited by Covid-19 cases in S'pore on Feb. 19

Today's update in full.

Kayla Wong | February 19, 2021, 11:09 PM

The Ministry of Health (MOH) confirmed 14 new cases of Covid-19 infection earlier today (Feb. 19).

This brings the total number of cases to 59,846.

Drop in new community cases

Overall, the number of new cases in the community has decreased from eight cases in the week before to one case in the past week.

The number of unlinked cases in the community has also decreased from five cases in the week before to one case in the past week.

Among the 69 confirmed cases reported from Feb. 13 to Feb. 19, 44 cases have tested positive for their serology tests, 10 have tested negative, and 15 serology test results are pending.

14 imported cases

All 14 cases announced are imported. They had been placed on SHN upon arrival in Singapore and were tested while serving SHN.

Amongst the 14 imported cases, 13 are asymptomatic, while one was symptomatic.

Here are the details:

  • One (Case 60324) is a Singapore Permanent Resident who returned from Indonesia.
  • Three (Cases 60318, 60323 and 60337) are Dependant’s Pass holders who arrived from India and Indonesia.
  • Four (Cases 60316, 60319, 60321 and 60325) are Work Pass holders who arrived from India, Nepal and the UAE.
  • Three are Work Permit holders who arrived from Indonesia and Malaysia, of whom one (Case 60322) is a foreign domestic worker.
  • Three (Cases 60328, 60329 and 60330) are Special Pass holders who are sea crew, and arrived from Malaysia and the UAE. They had not disembarked from their vessels and were tested onboard.

They had all already been placed on SHN or isolated upon arrival in Singapore and were tested while serving SHN or during isolation. Of these, 13 are not required to undergo mandatory on-arrival serology tests upon arrival.

The remaining case tested positive for her on-arrival serology test, but as MOH is unable to definitively conclude that she was no longer infectious when she arrived in Singapore, they will take all the necessary public health actions as a precautionary measure.

More on Case 60316

Case 60316 is a Work Pass holder who arrived from India on Dec. 30, 2020, and served SHN at a dedicated facility until Jan. 3, 2021.

As he had been identified as a close contact of Case 58944, he was subsequently placed on quarantine from Jan. 3 to Jan. 13.

His swabs done on Jan. 4 and Jan. 10 during quarantine were negative for Covid-19.

He is asymptomatic, and was detected when he took a Covid-19 pre-departure test on Feb. 17 in preparation for his return to India.

His test result came back positive for Covid-19 infection the next day, although the Ct value was very high, which is indicative of a low viral load.

Another sample taken on Feb. 18 tested negative for Covid-19. His serological test result has also come back positive. Given that these indicate likely past infection, MOH has classified the case as imported.

MOH said that he is likely to be shedding minute fragments of the virus RNA, which are no longer transmissible and infective to others.

20 remain in hospitals

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

In all, 59,697 have fully recovered from the infection and have been discharged from hospitals or community care facilities.

There are currently 20 confirmed cases who are still in hospital. Of these, most are stable or improving, and one is in critical condition in the intensive care unit.

100 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.

29 have passed away from complications due to Covid-19 infection.

No new location visited by infectious cases

MOH regularly updates a list of public places visited by confirmed Covid-19 cases for more than 30 minutes when they were infectious.

No new locations were added to the list on Feb. 19.

Here is the full list of locations visited by cases in the community during their infectious period in the past 14 days, as of Feb. 19:

Top image by Roslan Rahman/AFP via Getty Images