92% of 40 new COVID-19 cases in Singapore asymptomatic, including 1-year-old girl

SINGAPORE — The Ministry of Health (MOH) confirmed 40 new COVID-19 cases as of Tuesday (1 September), bringing the country’s total to 56,852.

Of the 40 cases, 37 – or 92.5 per cent – are asymptomatic and were proactively detected via screening and surveillance, said the ministry.

There is one case in the community, who is a work pass holder as well as seven imported cases, including three Singapore residents and a one-year-old baby girl.

The 32 remaining cases are foreign workers living in dormitories, of which 22 had been identified earlier as contacts of previous cases, and had already been quarantined.

Overall, two per cent of the new cases have no established links.

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

Epidemiological investigations of the case are in progress while all identified close contacts of the case have been isolated and placed on quarantine, and will be tested at the start and end of their quarantine period.

“We will also conduct serological tests for her household contacts to determine if she could have been infected by them,” said the MOH.

Of the seven imported cases, three are Singaporeans or permanent residents who returned to Singapore from India on 16 August, and the US on 18 August.

Two other cases are work pass holders currently employed in Singapore who arrived from Bangladesh and Brazil on 16 August. Another is a dependant’s pass holder who arrived from Bangladesh on 16 August.

The remaining imported case is a one-year-old baby girl who is asymptomatic. She is a short-term visit pass holder from India whose parents are PRs.

All imported cases had been placed on the 14-day stay-home notice upon their arrival here and had been tested while serving their notice at dedicated facilities, said the MOH.

The ministry noted that the number of new cases in the community has increased, from an average of two cases per day in the week before, to an average of three per day in the past week.

The number of unlinked cases in the community has remained stable at an average of one case per day in the past two weeks, it added.

10 cases in dorm detected via surveillance testing,

Amongst the 32 cases residing in dorms, 22 had been identified earlier as contacts of previous cases and were tested during quarantine to determine their status, the MOH said.

The remaining 10 cases were detected through surveillance testing.

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

“The serological test results for nine cases have come back positive so far, which indicate likely past infections,” the ministry added.

Overall, such workers make up 94.5 per cent – or 53,695 cases – of Singapore’s total COVID-19 tally.

Over 55,600 cases discharged; no patient in ICU

With 91 more patients discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities on Tuesday, 55,749 cases – or 98 per cent of the total – have fully recovered from the infection.

Most of the 86 hospitalised cases are stable or improving, while none is in critical condition in the intensive care unit.

A total of 990 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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