Five of eight new community cases part of family cluster: MOH

Five of the eight new community cases of Covid-19 infection reported yesterday were part of a family cluster involving two households, said the Ministry of Health (MOH).

In its daily update yesterday, the ministry added that these individuals had participated in family gatherings, and investigations were ongoing on whether any safe distancing rules were breached.

"We take a serious view of such breaches and will not hesitate to take enforcement action against any offenders," added MOH.

The eight community cases comprise seven Singaporeans and one 37-year-old Indian work pass holder, who was detected as a result of routine testing of workers in the construction, marine, and process sectors who are living outside dormitories.

One of the Singaporean community cases is a colleague of a previous case who worked at a camera shop at Excelsior Shopping Centre, and had earlier been placed on quarantine, added MOH.

As a precautionary measure following the detection of an earlier case who had visited the shop during the previous case's infectious period, MOH has identified and contacted 240 individuals who visited the shop between Aug 15 and Aug 18.

The ministry has facilitated Covid-19 testing for all of them, even though the risk of infection for visitors was assessed to be low.

So far, a total of 224 individuals have been swabbed and the results are pending, MOH said.

The camera shop was announced as a new cluster yesterday, as the newly confirmed cases was linked to three previous cases.

The remaining Singaporean case had gone to see a general practitioner on Aug 27, was diagnosed with acute respiratory infection, and given a swab test.

Epidemiological investigations for the only non-Singaporean community case - who is unlinked - are in progress, and all the identified close contacts of the case have been isolated and placed on quarantine.

They will be tested at the start and end of their quarantine period.

Serological tests for his household contacts will also be conducted to determine if he could have been infected by them, MOH added.

---

By the numbers

54

New cases

8

New cases in community

7 

Imported cases

56,771

Total cases

27

Deaths

139

Discharged yesterday

55,571

Total recovered

74

Total in hospital