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35-year-old woman is sole Covid-19 community case in Singapore; uncovered during pre-departure test

SINGAPORE — A 35-year-old long-term visit pass holder is Singapore’s sole Covid-19 community case on Wednesday (Feb 3).

SINGAPORE — A 35-year-old long-term visit pass holder is Singapore’s sole Covid-19 community case on Wednesday (Feb 3).

In its update on the coronavirus situation here, the Ministry of Health (MOH) said that the Indian national — who did not have any symptoms — was discovered when she took a Covid-19 pre-departure test on Tuesday in preparation for a trip to India.

MOH said that she had first travelled to India on Nov 30 last year and returned to Singapore on Jan 6.

Her pre-departure test taken in India on Jan 4 before her Singapore-bound flight was negative.

Upon her arrival here, the woman served her stay-home notice at a dedicated facility until Jan 20. The swab test conducted during her quarantine on Jan 17 was negative for Covid-19, MOH said.

When her pre-departure test for her trip back to India came back positive on Wednesday, she was taken to KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital.

It has classified the woman’s case as “locally transmitted while her serology test result is pending”.

“Should her serology test come back positive, and epidemiological investigations assess that this is a past infection, we will reclassify this as an imported case,” the ministry said.

In the meantime, the woman’s close contacts have been isolated and placed on quarantine, and will be tested at the start and end of their quarantine period.

Overall, the number of new cases in the community has gone down slightly from five in the week before to four in the past week.

The number of cases with no known links in the community has, however, gone up from one in the week before to three in the past week.

MOH said that it has been monitoring existing Covid-19 clusters for any further transmission of the virus.

“As there have been no more cases linked to the NewOcean 6 cluster for the past two incubation periods (of 28 days), the cluster has now been closed,” it said of the cases from the bunker tanker that were reported last December and early January this year.

IMPORTED CASES

All 17 imported cases on Wednesday had already been placed on stay-home notice or isolated upon arrival in Singapore, MOH said.

They are:

  • One permanent resident who returned from India

  • One work pass holder who came from India

  • Fourteen work permit holders who arrived from Bangladesh, Indonesia and Malaysia — nine of whom are foreign domestic workers

  • One seafarer on a special pass who arrived from Indonesia to board a vessel docked here. The 60-year-old man was swabbed onboard the vessel and taken to the hospital when his test result came back positive for the virus

UPDATES ON REMAINING CASES

The total number of infections in Singapore is now 59,602.

Of these, 59,320 people have fully recovered and have been discharged from hospitals or community care facilities, including 19 on Wednesday.

There are 39 patients in hospitals. “Of these, most are stable or improving, and none is in the intensive care unit,” MOH said.

Another 214 patients are isolated at community facilities. They have mild symptoms or are clinically well but still tested positive for Covid-19.

Twenty-nine people have died from complications due to the disease.

Related topics

MOH Covid-19 coronavirus community cases

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