Seven new COVID cases in Singapore, including 15-year-old private school student

SINGAPORE — The Ministry of Health (MOH) confirmed seven new COVID-19 cases as of Monday (5 October), taking the country’s total to 57,819.

All but one of the seven new cases are asymptomatic. All were isolated before the detection of the infection and have established links, said the MOH. None of the new cases are linked to existing or new clusters.

Of them, one case is in the community, while five reside in foreign worker dormitories.

The seventh case, a permanent resident, is imported and had been placed on the 14-day stay-home notice upon his arrival from India to Singapore, and was tested while serving the notice at a dedicated facility.

The lone community case, a 15-year-old Indian national, had been identified as a contact of a previously confirmed case who is her household member and was placed on quarantine on 3 October.

She developed symptoms the next day and was tested and subsequently conveyed to a hospital when her test result came back positive on the same day.

She is a student at a private school and was last in school on 2 October before the onset of symptoms, said the ministry.

The MOH added that all five cases residing in dorms had been identified earlier as contacts of previous cases, and had already been quarantined, as well as tested during quarantine. Of Singapore’s COVID-19 tally, 54,466 – or 94.2 per cent – are foreign workers living in dorms.

The ministry also noted that the number of new cases in the community has increased from an average of fewer than one case per day in the week before, to an average of one case in the past week.

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

Separately, the ministry also added a Sheng Siong outlet at 88 Tanglin Halt Road to the list of public venues visited by community cases while infectious. The outlet was visited on 27 September from 6.05pm to 6.35pm.

99% of total cases have recovered

With 22 more patients discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities on Monday, 57,597 cases – or 99.6 per cent of the total – have fully recovered from the infection.

Most of the 42 hospitalised cases are stable or improving, while none is in critical condition in the intensive care unit.

A total of 153 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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