12 COVID-19 Cases Today (27 Apr); 1 is a Community Case

It may suck to hear about locally-transmitted cases, but on the bright side, at least there’s only one of them today. Plus, no dorm cases unlike yesterday (26 Apr)!

As of 12pm today (27 Apr), the Ministry of Health (MOH) has preliminarily confirmed 12 new cases of COVID-19 infection.

One is a community case.

This brings the total number of cases in Singapore to 61,063.

Overall, the number of new cases in the community has increased from 9 cases in the week before to 10 cases in the past week. The number of unlinked cases in the community has remained stable at 4 cases per week in the past 2 weeks.

Both Locally Transmitted COVID-19 Cases Reported on 26 Apr Could’ve Been Past Infections

Among the 45 new COVID-19 cases yesterday (26 Apr), one case was in the community, while another was in a migrant workers’ dormitory.

The migrant worker who tested positive for the coronavirus lives at Westlite Woodlands dormitory, the site of a growing COVID-19 cluster.

However, the authorities believe the 35-year-old Bangladeshi contracted the virus abroad.

This is because the men from the cluster who previously tested positive live in a different block and had not interacted with the man.

The 35-year-old is employed by Jenta Decoration Contractor as a construction worker but does not typically interact with clients.

He had taken several swab tests as part of rostered routine testing, but they had all returned negative.

Then he was tested again on 23 April, and this time the result came back positive. He was taken to the National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID). Curiously, the man then tested negative just two days later. 

The authorities believe he was infected while overseas and that he’s now shedding minute fragments of the virus RNA which are no longer transmissible and infective to others.

This theory is supported by his serology test result, which came back positive and indicates a past infection.

On the other hand, the sole community case reported yesterday (26 Apr) is a 19-year-old student who studies in the United Kingdom (UK) and returned to Singapore last December.

Last year, she had been in the UK from 11 September to 1 December. She said she experienced acute respiratory infection symptoms while in the UK in September, but was not tested for COVID-19 then.

She then returned to Singapore and served her SHN, during which she tested negative for COVID-19.

She too took a pre-departure test on 23 April in preparation for her trip to the UK and tested positive.

Similar to the migrant worker, her serology test has come back positive, which suggests a possible past infection.

Both cases are currently unlinked.

339 Active Cases

There are currently 109 confirmed cases who are still in hospital. Of these, most are stable or improving, and none is in the intensive care unit.

230 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.

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

Feature Image: kandl stock / Shutterstock.com (Image for illustration purpose only)