1 of the Unlinked COVID-19 Cases Reported on 23 June is a Fully Vaccinated NCID Nurse

As always, the coronavirus is not going down without a fight.

Phase 2 (Heightened Alert) certainly helped bring community infections down, but they’re still not as low as they should be, and new clusters are popping up faster than pimples on a teenager’s face.

Yesterday (23 June) 13 new community cases were reported, and four new clusters were identified.

Here are the details:

Unlinked Cases Include Fully Vaccinated NCID Nurse

Of the 13 community cases, 10 have no established links to previous cases. They are:

• an 81-year-old Singaporean man who is a retiree
• a 34-year-old Singaporean woman who works as a nurse at the National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID)
•  a 69-year-old Singaporean woman who is a retiree

The NCID nurse had interacted with patients at work, despite donning full personal protective equipment (PPE) such as an N95 mask, face shield, goggles, gown, and gloves.

She developed a runny nose and sore throat on 21 June night, and sought medical treatment at a GP clinic on 22 June, where she underwent both an ART and PCR test.

Both tests returned a positive result.

Interestingly, her earlier tests from Rostered Routine Testing (RRT) – the last being on 10 June – were all negative for COVID-19 infection.

Her serology test result is negative for the N antigen, which suggests the presence of early infection, MOH said.

The nurse received her first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine on 29 January, and her second dose on 20 February.

4 New Clusters

The four new clusters are all linked to specific cases, namely:

• Case 64135 cluster – named after a 57-year-old promoter at a Guardian outlet in ION Orchard
• Case 64349 cluster – named after a 24-year-old financial consultant with Prudential
• Case 64359 cluster – named after a 38-year-old foreign domestic worker
• Case 64374 cluster – named after a 26-year-old analyst at Deutsche Bank

A 62-year-old Singaporean man who works as an electrical building contractor at Seng Tat Enterprises was added to the Case 64135 cluster.

Meanwhile, a 46-year-old cleaner at Nihon Premium Clinic and a 26-year-old kitchen staff at Monster Curry (ION Orchard) were linked to the Case 64349 cluster.

The Case 64359 cluster has two additions as well, namely an 8-year-old student at Alexandra Primary School and a 4-year-old student at My First Skool (Tanjong Pagar Plaza).

Finally, one case was linked to the new Case 64374 cluster – a 29-year-old analyst at CrimsonLogic Pte Ltd.

Clusters in Bukit Merah and Redhill Continue to Grow

The clusters at 115 and 119 Bukit Merah View, as well as the one at 90 Redhill Close all had one addition reported yesterday.

They are:

• a 34-year-old Indian woman who works as a cashier at Mustafa Shopping Centre (115 Bukit Merah View Market cluster)
• a 50-year-old Singaporean woman who is employed by CSP Maintenance Pte Ltd as a cleaner at Enabling Village (119 Bukit Merah View Market cluster)
• a 31-year-old Singaporean man who works as a nurse at National Heart Centre Singapore (90 Redhill Close)

MOH said that they have finished mandatory and voluntary testing at Bukit Merah View.

Of the 2,133 residents and visitors, only 5 tested positive for COVID-19.

The last linked community case not connected to any cluster is an 86 year-old Singaporean man who is a retiree.

141 Cases in Hospitals; More Clusters Closed

At the moment, there are 141 COVID-19 cases in hospitals, most of whom are stable or improving. 5 are in critical condition in the intensive care unit.

Another 181 cases with lower risk factors and mild symptoms are isolated and cared for at community facilities.

15 more cases have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities recently.

It wasn’t all doom and gloom, though, as MOH closed three COVID-19 clusters after no more cases were linked to them for the past 28 days.

The three clusters were linked to a Marina Bay Sands Casino dealer, McDonald’s delivery riders and an operations employee at The Meatery SG.

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