SINGAPORE — Some staff members and residents of Lee Ah Mooi Old Age Home have been tested for Covid-19 after a former employee was found to have the coronavirus on Aug 30 in the Philippines.

All 90 people tested negative for the virus, the Ministry of Health (MOH) said in a press release on Monday (Aug 31).

The employee’s last day at the nursing home was Aug 26, and she had not displayed any acute respiratory symptoms while she was at work, MOH added.

As a precautionary measure, the ministry and the Agency for Integrated Care (AIC) worked with the home to test the 90 individuals, who were identified as possible contacts of the case.

AIC works with health and social care bodies to provide services for the ageing population. It said in a separate media statement that the nursing home, located on Silat Avenue off Jalan Bukit Merah, has since suspended all physical visits to the property “until further notice”.

The home has thoroughly cleaned and disinfected the ward and affected areas, and will be enhancing the use of personal protective equipment among its staff members.

AIC said that it has been in close contact with the nursing home to “provide advice and support in managing the situation.

It noted that the home has been complying with the existing precautionary measures in line with government advisories since February this year.

“We will continue to monitor the situation closely and will support the nursing home to ensure continuity of care for their residents during this period if required.” 

41 NEW CASES

On Monday, MOH also confirmed 41 new cases of Covid-19, including seven that are imported and three in the community. The remaining 31 are migrant workers staying in dormitories.

The seven imported cases comprise six Singaporeans or permanent residents who had returned from India and Malaysia between Aug 17 and 19. The seventh is a work permit holder from India who arrived on Aug 19.

They had been placed on a 14-day stay-home notice and tested positive while serving their notices at dedicated facilities.

Among the three community cases, one is a work pass holder and two are work permit holders. All three have no known links to past cases or clusters and were detected as a result of the ministry’s fortnightly Rostered Routine Testing of workers in the construction, marine and process sectors who are living outside dormitories.

The three had no symptoms and serological tests were positive for two of them, which indicate likely past infections, MOH said. Investigations are ongoing for the third case.

“In the meantime, all the identified close contacts of the cases have been isolated and placed on quarantine, and will be tested at the start and end of their quarantine period so that we can detect asymptomatic cases. We will also conduct serological tests for their household contacts to determine if they could have been infected by them,” MOH said.

Overall, the number of new cases in the community has gone up, from an average of two cases a day in the week before to an average of three in the past two weeks.

The number of cases in the community with no known sources of infection has remained stable at an average of one a day in the past 14 days.

“We will continue to closely monitor these numbers, as well as the cases detected through our surveillance programme,” MOH said.

There were also no new locations added to the ministry’s list of places visited by Covid-19 patients while they were infectious.

Of the 31 new cases involving migrant workers staying in dormitories, 16 had been identified earlier as contacts of previous cases.

The remaining 15 were detected through surveillance testing, such as the Rostered Routine Testing and the testing of those with acute respiratory infection (ARI) symptoms.

“The serological test results for 11 cases have come back positive so far, which indicate likely past infections,” it said.

UPDATES ON REMAINING CASES

The total number of infections in Singapore now stands at 56,812.

Of these, 55,658 people have fully recovered and have been discharged from hospitals or community care facilities, including 72 on Monday.

There are still 78 patients in hospitals and most are in stable condition or improving. No one is in intensive care.

Another 1,049 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-seven people have died from complications due to Covid-19.