COVID-19: Singapore confirms 14 new cases, all imported

SINGAPORE — The Ministry of Health (MOH) confirmed 14 new COVID-19 cases in Singapore as of Tuesday (26 January), taking the country’s total case count to 59,366.

All cases are imported, marking the fourth day in a row with no new local transmissions.

“Amongst the new cases today, 13 are asymptomatic, and were detected from our proactive screening and surveillance, while one was symptomatic,” said the MOH.

Of the 14 imported cases, two are Singaporeans and one is a permanent resident who returned from Russia, the UK, and the US. Tuesday’s sole symptomatic case is a 53-year-old female PR who returned from the US.

Two others are dependant’s pass holders, including a nine-year-old girl, who arrived from India and Portugal, while another two cases are work pass holders who arrived from India.

Six others are work permit holders who arrived from Bangladesh, India, and Indonesia, of whom one is a foreign domestic worker.

The remaining case is a short-term visit pass holder who arrived from India to visit her child who is a PR.

All cases were placed on the stay-home notice upon their arrival here and were tested while serving their notices.

Separately, the MOH confirmed that three previously reported community cases have the UK strain of the novel coronavirus. Authorities confirmed Singapore’s first case of the B.1.1.7 strain on 23 December last year, as well as 11 others who have tested preliminarily positive for the strain.

The ministry noted the number of new cases in the community has decreased from 14 in the week before to nine in the past week. The number of unlinked cases in the community has also decreased from five in the week before to two in the past week.

99% of total cases have recovered

With 20 more patients discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities on Tuesday, 59,086 cases – or 99.5 per cent of the total – have fully recovered from the infection.

Most of the 50 hospitalised cases are stable or improving, and none in the intensive care unit.

A total of 201 patients – with mild symptoms or are clinically well but still test positive – are isolated and cared for at community facilities.

Apart from 29 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.

Amongst the 209 confirmed cases reported from 20 to 26 January, 105 cases have tested positive for their serology tests, 25 have tested negative, and 79 serology test results are pending.

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