Yesterday was the first day of Phase 3 and we’ve had a community case. Thankfully, there wasn’t any locally transmitted case on the second day.
As of 12pm today (29 December 2020), the Ministry of Health (MOH) has preliminarily confirmed 13 new cases of COVID-19 infection.
All of them are imported cases.
This brings the total number of cases in Singapore to 58,542.
Sole Community Case Reported Yesterday (28 Dec) is an SIA Steward Who is a Part-Time Grab Driver, Too
The Ministry of Health (MOH) reveals that the sole community case reported yesterday is a 48-year-old Singaporean man.
He works as an air steward and is a part-time driver with Grab.
An asymptomatic case, he was detected via proactive testing arranged by the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) for flight crew who’ve returned from overseas flights.
The man had recently travelled to the US from 12 to 16 Dec 2020 on a controlled itinerary, MOH said.
According to MOH, he had to be tested multiple times.
He was first tested on Wednesday but the results came back inconclusive on Friday.
He was tested a second time but the results on that day returned inconclusive as well.
It was only on Sunday that his swab test came back positive for the coronavirus.
Throughout the period of waiting for test results, the man had stayed at home.
He was immediately sent to the National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID).
His serological test came out negative, indicating that it’s likely that he is suffering from a current infection.
It was additionally reported that other crew members on the same flight were tested and their results came back negative.
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MOH also explained that because the man’s infection and his travel overseas differed by a relatively long period of time, they have classified his case as an unlinked local transmission, instead of an imported case.
Epidemiological investigations are ongoing.
Meanwhile, all close contacts, including both colleagues and family members, have been placed on quarantine.
They will be undergoing both the swab tests and serological tests.
Featured Image: Rajaraman Arumugam / Shutterstock.com (Image is for illustration purpose only)