18 imported Covid-19 cases, including 10 foreign domestic workers

SINGAPORE — Singapore on Wednesday (Nov 11) reported 18 new cases of Covid-19 and 10 of them are foreign domestic workers who had arrived here recently.

All 10 workers are work permit holders — two came from Indonesia and eight from Myanmar.

The women are all aged between 24 and 39.

There are no cases in the wider community.

The remaining eight new cases are imported as well: Two are permanent residents, four are work pass holders, one is a dependant’s pass holder and one is a special pass holder.

The Ministry of Health (MOH) said in its evening update of the coronavirus situation that the special pass holder is a 35-year-old Russian man who had arrived from Russia to board a ship here as a crew member.

The others had travel history to India, Indonesia, Myanmar, Nepal, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

All the 18 new patients have no symptoms.

They were placed on stay-home notices upon their arrival in Singapore where they were tested for the virus.

Overall, the number of new cases in the community has remained low, with a total of two cases in the past week. The two have no known links yet to past cases, MOH said.

While there were no cases in the community announced on Wednesday, the ministry gave an update on the sole community case reported on Tuesday: A 25-year-old Malaysian man who works as a cleaner here.

MOH said that the serological test for the man has come back positive, “which indicates likely past infection”.

“Prior to this, he had been tested twice using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test. His first test on Nov 3 was inconclusive, and the second test on Nov 9 yielded a very high CT value, which is indicative of a low viral load,” the ministry said.

It added that the man works as a cleaner at an office building at PaxOcean Singapore shipyard, which is connected to a previous case, but there are no indications that they had interacted.

UPDATES ON REMAINING CASES

The total number of infections in Singapore now stands at 58,091.

Of these, 57,990 people have fully recovered and have been discharged from hospitals or community care facilities, including five on Wednesday.

There are still 33 patients in hospitals and most are in stable condition or improving. No one is in intensive care.

Another 40 patients are isolated and being cared for at community facilities. They have mild symptoms or are clinically well but still tested positive for Covid-19.

Twenty-eight people have died from complications due to Covid-19.