As of Sunday noon (20 Dec), the Ministry of Health (MOH) has confirmed 19 new cases of COVID-19 infection.

This brings the total number of infection cases to 58,422.

Amongst the new cases today, 18 are asymptomatic and were detected from screening and surveillance, while 1 was symptomatic.

All of the new cases are imported cases, who had already been placed on Stay-Home Notice or isolated upon arrival in Singapore.

Amongst the 19 imported cases, 2 (Cases 58640 and 58652) are Singaporeans and 3 (Cases 58638, 58643 and 58658) are Singapore Permanent Residents who returned from the UK and India.

Another 2 are a Work Pass holder (Case 58644) and a Work Permit holder (Case 58653) currently employed in Singapore who arrived from Russia and Indonesia. In addition, there are 3 (Cases 58641, 58642 and 58657) Long-Term Visit Pass holders who arrived from India, and 1 (Case 58637) Dependant’s Pass holder who arrived from the UK.

Another 4 are Short-Term Visit Pass holders. Of these, 1 (Case 58646) was already receiving medical care in Singapore and had returned for further treatment, accompanied by his caregiver (Case 58645). The other 2 (Cases 58647 and 58656) are here to visit their family members who are Singaporeans or Singapore Permanent Residents.

The remaining 4 (Cases 58648, 58649, 58650 and 58651) are Special Pass holders who are crew members of a ship which arrived from Indonesia. They had remained on the ship until they were conveyed to a quarantine facility as they had been identified as close contacts of an earlier confirmed case.

There are no new cases linked to clusters today.

Update on condition of confirmed cases

5 more cases of COVID-19 infection have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities. In all, 58,279 have fully recovered from the infection and have been discharged from hospitals or community care facilities.

There are currently 43 confirmed cases who are still in the hospital. Of these, most are stable or improving, and none is in the intensive care unit. 71 are isolated and cared for at community facilities. These are those who have mild symptoms or are clinically well but still test positive for COVID-19.

29 have passed away from complications due to COVID-19 infection.

Investigations into 13 cases who served SHN at Mandarin Orchard Singapore

On Saturday, MOH announced that it is investigating 13 cases of COVID-19 infection amongst individuals who had served SHN at Mandarin Orchard Singapore between 22 October and 11 November 2020.

In total, 394 persons serving SHN at the hotel have been swabbed, and 384 test results are ready, while 10 are pending. Of the results that are ready, 381 have come back negative for COVID-19 infection. 3 have tested positive and were immediately conveyed to the hospital via ambulance.

As they have recent travel history, it is likely that these are imported and have been included in today’s case count. Nevertheless, the National Public Health Laboratory will conduct whole genome sequencing and phylogenetic analysis to determine if they could be linked to the 13 cases.

It takes about 4 weeks to culture the virus and completes the genome sequencing, the ministry noted.

MOH has also tested 158 staff of Mandarin Orchard Singapore so far, and all the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) test results have come back negative for COVID-19. However, the serological tests of 3 staff have come back positive, indicating likely past infections.

Epidemiological investigations of these cases are in progress.

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