10 new Covid-19 cases in Singapore, including one in the community

[SINGAPORE] There were 10 new coronavirus cases confirmed as at Friday noon, taking Singapore's total to 60,080.

One of these cases was in the community, while the other nine were imported case who had been placed on stay-home notices on arrival in Singapore, said the Ministry of Health (MOH).

There were no new cases from the migrant workers' dormitories.

On Thursday, an Indonesian foreign domestic worker who attended the same programme as a previously infected individual about a month ago was the sole community case announced.

The 37-year-old woman was tested on Tuesday during investigations into the other case, who was also a foreign domestic worker, said MOH.

As an added precaution, MOH tested all participants of the settling-in programme for foreign domestic workers conducted on Feb 4, which both women attended.

Based on epidemiological investigations, they were likely to have been separately infected, as they were not close contacts, and there is no evidence that the two cases are linked, MOH said.

The 37-year-old woman, who is asymptomatic, has been classified as an unlinked community case.

She arrived in Singapore on Jan 20 and served her stay-home notice (SHN) at a dedicated facility until Feb 3. Both her Covid-19 pre-departure test in Indonesia on Jan 18 and her SHN swab test on Feb 2 came back negative for the virus.

She was taken to the National Centre for Infectious Diseases after her test returned a positive result on Tuesday. Her serological test result is positive, indicating a likely past infection.

"As we are unable to definitively confirm her date of infection, we will take all the necessary public health actions as a precautionary measure," MOH said.

There were also seven imported cases confirmed on Thursday.

They came from several countries including Qatar, India and Malaysia.

With 28 cases discharged on Thursday, 59,924 patients have fully recovered from the disease.

A total of 21 patients remained in hospital on Thursday, including one in critical condition in the intensive care unit, while 81 were recuperating in community facilities.

Singapore has had 29 deaths from Covid-19 complications, while 15 who tested positive have died of other causes.

Globally, the virus outbreak, which began in December 2019, has infected more than 118.4 million people. More than 2.6 million people have died.

THE STRAITS TIMES