31 COVID-19 Cases Today (6 Jan); 2 Are Community cases

It appears that community cases are indeed coming back.

Today (6 January), as of 12pm, the Ministry of Health (MOH) has preliminarily confirmed 31 new cases of COVID-19 infection.

29 of them are imported cases. Amongst them, 3 are Singaporeans or Singapore Permanent Residents, and 12 are foreign domestic workers.

2 of them are community cases. MOH will provide more information about the cases tonight.

This brings the total number of cases in Singapore to 58,780.

Based on yesterday’s figures, the number of new cases in the community has increased from 1 case in the week before to 11 cases in the past week. The number of unlinked cases in the community has also increased from 1 case in the week before to 4 cases in the past week.

A New COVID-19 Cluster Has Now Formed in a Bunker Tanker

After a couple of days of no community infections, two new local transmissions were reported on Tuesday (5 Jan).

And we also have a new Covid-19 cluster.

One of the community cases is a 55-year-old Singaporean man who is a close contact of a previously reported case.

The previously reported case is a crew member of a vessel that arrived from Indonesia on 17 Dec.

There’s just something about ships that the coronavirus seems to love.

The 55-year-old man is a cargo officer who was on board the bunker tanker NewOcean 6 from 21 Dec to 23 Dec and from 28 Dec to 2 Jan.

In between these two trips, the man was at his home at Tah Ching Road.

He had been swabbed for the coronavirus earlier as part of schedule testing, but tested negative.

But after a crew member aboard the NewOcean 6 tested positive for Covid-19, the 55-year-old was placed on quarantine on 31 Dec.

He tested positive for Covid-19 the next day, and was brought to the National Centre for Infectious Diseases.

His serological test result has come back negative, indicating that this is likely a current infection, the Ministry of Health said.

The man, along with Case 58812, five newly confirmed cases, and two previous cases now form the NewOcean 6 cluster.

Consequently, all remaining crew members aboard the NewOcean 6 have been placed on quarantine since 31 Dec.

The other community Covid-19 case is a 49-year-old Indian man who arrived in Singapore on 10 Dec on a short-term visa.

He came to visit his Singaporean spouse, and served his stay-home notice at a dedicated facility until 24 Dec.

He was permitted entry into the country because his pre-departure test had returned a negative result.

His test on 21 Dec during his SHN also came back negative.

Even after jumping over so many hurdles and evading the coronavirus, the man still eventually contracted it in the community.

His infection was only detected when he took a pre-departure test before returning to India, and he was conveyed to Mount Elizabeth Hospital the next day.

His serological test returned a positive result as well, meaning it was likely a past infection.

Featured Image: Rajaraman Arumugam / Shutterstock.com (Image is for illustration purpose only)