Yahoo Finance 11 new COVID cases in Singapore, including one in community
SINGAPORE — The Ministry of Health (MOH) confirmed 11 new cases of COVID-19 in Singapore on Wednesday (17 February), taking the country's total case count to 59,821.
One of them is a case in the community, while the remaining ten are imported.
"Amongst the new cases today, nine are asymptomatic and were detected from our proactive screening and surveillance, while two were symptomatic," said the MOH.
The lone community case, currently unlinked, is a 59-year-old Singaporean woman who works at Aibel in an administrative role. She has been working from home since March last year.
She developed an itchy throat on 4 February and sought medical treatment at a general practitioner clinic. She was placed on five days of medical leave and told to return for follow-up consultation and COVID-19 test if she had not recovered after three days.
The woman informed her doctor on 6 February that she had recovered.
On 15 February, she developed fever, chills, nausea, and epigastric pain, and sought treatment at Sengkang General Hospital, where she was tested for COVID-19, and isolated. Her test result came back positive for COVID-19 infection the next day.
"Her serology test result has come back negative, indicating that this is likely a current infection," said the MOH.
Epidemiological investigations are ongoing and all the identified close contacts of the case, including her family members, have been isolated and placed on quarantine, and will be tested at the start and end of their quarantine period.
Serological tests will also be conducted for the close contacts to determine if the case could have been infected by them.
The MOH noted that the number of new cases in the community has increased from four in the week before to six in the past week. The number of unlinked cases in the community has decreased from four in the week before to three in the past week.
Separately, the ministry announced the closure of the case 59343 cluster – named after the number assigned to a male Chinese national who works at Golden Bridge Foods Manufacturing – as there have been no more cases linked to it for the past two incubation periods, or 28 days.
One place was added to a list of public venues visited by community cases while they were infectious – Marmaris Restaurant at 111 Dunlop Street, which was visited on 7 February from 1pm to 3pm.
UPDATE: 11 new COVID cases in Singapore, including one in community https://t.co/ma2Y4ucV08 pic.twitter.com/XtlgyHIkbx
— Yahoo Singapore (@YahooSG) February 17, 2021
10 imported cases, including 7 foreign domestic workers
Of the 10 imported cases, one is a work pass holder who arrived from India.
Eight others are work permit holders who arrived from Indonesia and Malaysia, of whom seven are foreign domestic workers.
The remaining case is a short-term visit pass holder who arrived from India for studies in Singapore.
Seven of the imported cases arrived in Singapore before the requirement for mandatory on-arrival serology testing commenced, while three are not required to undergo these tests upon their arrival.
All of them were placed on the stay-home notice upon their arrival here and were tested during the notice.
Since 5 February, newly arrived work permit and s pass holders in the construction, marine, and process sectors – as well as foreign domestic workers and confinement nannies – who have recent travel history to higher-risk countries or regions, are progressively required to undergo mandatory on-arrival polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and serology tests.
99% of total cases have recovered, 1 in ICU
With 15 more patients discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities on Wednesday, 59,676 cases – or 99.8 per cent of the total – have fully recovered from the infection.
Most of the 25 hospitalised cases are stable or improving, and one in the intensive care unit.
A total of 91 patients – with mild symptoms or are clinically well but still test positive – are isolated and cared for at community facilities.
Apart from 29 patients who have died from COVID-19 complications, 15 others who tested positive for the virus were determined to have died from unrelated causes, including three whose deaths were attributed to a heart attack and another four, whose deaths were attributed to coronary heart disease.
Amongst the 74 confirmed cases reported from 11 to 17 February, 37 cases have tested positive for their serology tests, 19 have tested negative, and 18 serology test results are pending.
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