Indonesian foreign domestic worker is sole Covid-19 community case

[SINGAPORE] An Indonesian foreign domestic worker who attended the same programme as a previously infected individual about a month ago was the sole case of coronavirus infection in the community announced on Thursday (March 11).

The 37-year-old woman was tested on Tuesday during investigations into the other case, also a foreign domestic worker. The latter tested positive for the virus on March 4, said the Ministry of Health (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."However 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 by the Health Ministry on Thursday, taking Singapore's total to 60,070.

They tested positive while serving stay-home notices after their arrival in Singapore, said MOH.

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

Overall, the number of new cases in the community decreased to two cases in the past week, from three cases in the week before.

The number of unlinked cases in the community has remained stable at two cases per week in the past two weeks.

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

A total of 21 patients remain in hospital, including one in critical condition in the intensive care unit, while 81 are recuperating in community facilities.

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

THE STRAITS TIMES