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SINGAPORE – 10 new coronavirus cases were confirmed as of noon on Saturday (December 26), all of which were imported.
They were placed on stay-at-home notices or isolated upon arrival in Singapore, the Ministry of Health (MINSA) said.
There were no new community cases and none of the workers’ bedrooms.
Saturday’s cases bring Singapore’s total to 58,519.
On Friday, a permanent Singapore resident was found to be infected with the coronavirus after completing his stay-at-home notice, which he partially fulfilled at the Mandarin Orchard Singapore hotel.
The Health Ministry said late on Friday night (December 25) that it is investigating whether it is linked to 13 patients who had previously delivered their stay-at-home notices at the same hotel and are suspected of being linked to each other.
The PR, a 47-year-old man, was one of 14 new Covid-19 cases announced by the Health Ministry on Friday, all of which were imported.
The Health Ministry said the patient initially delivered his stay-at-home notice at the Mandarin Orchard hotel after returning from the Philippines on December 10.
But the PR was later moved to another dedicated facility on December 20 when the ministry began investigations of the 13 Covid-19 cases that had delivered their hotel stay notices.
The 13 cases, which came from 10 different countries, were infected by coronavirus strains with “high genetic similarity”, implying that the infections could have come from one source and could have occurred in the hotel.
The Health Ministry said on Friday that the PR had tested negative for the coronavirus during swab tests on December 19 and 21. He also had no symptoms of Covid-19.
“As a precautionary measure, he was swabbed again upon completing his stay-at-home notice on Thursday and went home after the test,” the ministry said.
“His test result was positive that night and he was taken to the hospital the next day.”
Also pending are the results of the patient’s serological test, which will determine if his infection was one that occurred in the past.
Friday’s new Covid-19 cases, of which none came from the community or workers’ dormitories, bring Singapore’s total to 58,509.
The Health Ministry said the 14 new confirmed cases as of noon Friday had been placed on stay-at-home notices or isolated upon arrival in Singapore. Twelve of them were asymptomatic, while the remaining two had symptoms of infection.
Six of the new cases are Singaporean and two of them are PR of Singapore. These cases had returned from South Africa, the Republic of Korea, the United Kingdom, the United States, the Philippines, Malaysia, and India.
There was also one work pass holder and three work permit holders. They had come from Indonesia and India.
The remaining two cases are dependent pass holders who arrived from India and the United States.
The Health Ministry added that one of the new Covid-19 patients had arrived from the UK on December 7 and delivered a 14-day stay-at-home notice at a dedicated facility until December 21.
He tested negative for the coronavirus after he was swabbed on December 17. But he developed a cough on December 23 after completing his notice and tested positive for Covid-19 at a hospital.
The National Public Health Laboratory later confirmed that the original sample was positive for Covid-19 infection. But a second sample taken by the lab on Thursday came back negative for the virus.
“His serological test result has come back positive, indicating a probable past infection,” the Health Ministry said.
“So it is likely that you are shedding tiny bits of RNA from the virus, which are no longer transmissible or infectious to others.”
Singapore has had 29 deaths from Covid-19 complications, while 15 who tested positive have died from other causes.
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