13 new Covid-19 cases in Singapore, all imported

SINGAPORE — Singapore reported 13 new cases of Covid-19 on Tuesday (March 23), all of which were imported.

In its evening update on the coronavirus situation here, the Ministry of Health (MOH) said that all 13 cases had no symptoms and were detected from proactive screening and surveillance here. 

All the infected persons had been placed on stay-home notices upon their arrival here, and were tested while serving their stay-home notices. 

They are:

• CNA Games

  

  Guess Word

  Crack the word, one row at a time

  

  Buzzword

  Create words using the given letters

  

  Mini Sudoku

  Tiny puzzle, mighty brain teaser

  

  Mini Crossword

  Small grid, big challenge

  

  Word Search

  Spot as many words as you can

  Show More

  Show Less

  A dependant’s pass holder who came from India

• A work pass holder who came from the United States

• A short-term visit pass holder who arrived from the United Arab Emirates for a work project in Singapore

• Three Singaporeans and two permanent residents who returned from Austria, India, Malaysia and the US 

• Five work permit holders who came from Bangladesh, India and the Philippines — of whom one is a foreign domestic worker 

One of the Singaporeans was a 40 year-old woman who had been residing in Austria since August 2019. She returned to Singapore on March 2 this year, and served stay-home notice at a dedicated facility until March 16. 

MOH said that both her on-arrival test on March 2, as well as her swab test done on March 15 during stay-home notice were negative. 

Having no symptoms, she was detected when she took a Covid-19 pre-departure test on March 20 in preparation for a trip to Indonesia. Her test result came back positive on March 22 and she was taken to the National Centre for Infectious Diseases. 

“Her Ct value was very high, which is indicative of a low viral load, and her serology test result has also come back positive,” MOH said. “Given that these indicate likely past infection, we have classified the case as imported based on her travel history.” 

MOH also said that she is likely to be shedding minute fragments of the viral ribonucleic acid (RNA), which are no longer transmissible and infective to others.

Overall, the number of new cases in the community has dropped from two cases in the week before to none in the past week.

The number of cases in the community with no links to confirmed cases has also gone down from two cases in the week before to none in the past week. 

UPDATE ON REMAINING CASES

The total number of infections in Singapore is now 60,221.

Of these, 60,063 people have fully recovered and been discharged, including 12 on Tuesday.

There are still 25 patients in hospitals. Of these, most are stable or improving, and none is in the intensive care unit, MOH said.

Another 103 patients are isolated at community facilities. They have mild symptoms or are clinically well but still tested positive for Covid-19.

Thirty people have died from complications due to the disease.