SINGAPORE – The sole Covid-19 case in the community on Saturday (March 27) was a 48-year-old permanent resident who was detected when she took a pre-departure test to prepare for a trip to India.
She works as a part-time food packer at Sheera at 5 Kaki Bukit Road 1, and her job does not entail interaction with customers, said the Ministry of Health (MOH) on Saturday.
The woman, known as Case 61205, had travelled to India in March last year and returned to Singapore on Dec 11.
She served her stay-home notice at a dedicated facility until Dec 25 and her test taken on Dec 21 was negative.
She is asymptomatic, and was detected when she took a pre-departure test on March 25 for another trip to India.
Her test result came back positive on March 26, and she was conveyed via ambulance to the National Centre for Infectious Diseases, said MOH.
But another test conducted by the National Public Health Laboratory on March 26 was negative, and her serological test result has come back positive.
“She could be shedding minute fragments of the virus RNA from a past infection, but given that we are not able to definitively conclude when she had been infected, we will take all the necessary public health actions as a precautionary measure,” added MOH.
There were a total of 23 new coronavirus cases on Saturday taking Singapore’s total to 60,288.
The other 22 cases were imported cases that had been placed on stay-home notice or isolated on arrival in Singapore, said MOH.
They included a Singaporean and two permanent residents returning from India and Kazakhstan.
The number of new cases in the community has increased from none in the week before to two cases in the past week, said MOH.
The number of unlinked cases in the community has also increased from none in the week before to two cases in the past week.
With 10 cases discharged yesterday, 60,098 patients have fully recovered from the disease.
A total of 32 patients remain in hospital, including one in critical condition in the intensive care unit, while 113 are recuperating in community facilities.
Singapore has had 30 deaths from Covid-19 complications, while 15 who tested positive have died of other causes.