After going 13 consecutive days in March without a single COVID-19 case in the community, Singaporeans were buoyant.
We made plans to celebrate with some drinks and dancing at a club, but then we realised that nightclubs were still closed, so we sadly danced with a few friends in our brightly-lit living room.
The next day, when we woke up and felt like our heads were being hammered, we discovered that one locally-transmitted coronavirus case had been reported.
Yes, if there’s one thing we’ve learned during this pandemic, it’s that celebrations over defeating the virus are often premature.
And all the community cases reported in the following days proved that.
Sole Community Case on 31 Mar was a 22 YO Student from UK; He was Isolated for 21 Days
34 new coronavirus infections were reported on the last day of March, including one case in the community.
The 33 imported cases had been placed on stay-home notice or isolated upon arrival in Singapore.
The sole community case is a 22-year-old permanent resident who is studying in the United Kingdom.
He had returned to Singapore from the UK on 11 Jan and served a stay-home notice (SHN) at a dedicated facility.
As per the requirement for travellers from the UK, the student also served an additional seven-day self-isolation at his place of residence until 1 Feb.
He was tested on 24 Jan during his SHN and on 29 Jan during his self-isolation. Both were negative for COVID-19.
Sometime after, the student planned to return to the UK and needed to take a COVID-19 pre-departure test before leaving the country.
It was then that the authorities discovered his infection.
The 22-year-old tested positive for the coronavirus and was taken to the National Centre for Infectious Diseases. He was asymptomatic.
His serology test was positive as well, indicating that this is likely not a recent infection.
Curiously, another test on Wednesday (31 March) came back negative.
As the Ministry of Health (MOH) explained, this could mean the student was shedding minute fragments of the virus from a past infection, which are no longer transmissible and infectious.
The bad news is that the number of new community cases has increased from none in the week before, to three cases in the past week.
Similarly, the number of unlinked cases in the community has also increased from zero to three in the same period.
99.5% Recovery Rate
The good news, though, is that most of our COVID-19 patients recover.
Of the 60,381 cases reported here, 60,134 people have fully recovered from the disease, meaning Singapore has a recovery rate of 99.5%.
30 patients here have so far died from the virus.
37 patients remain in the hospital, including one in critical condition in the intensive care unit. Another 165 are recuperating in community facilities.
Featured Image: kandl stock / Shutterstock.com
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