SINGAPORE - The Ministry of Health (MOH) has removed two community cases that it had earlier announced on Thursday (Oct 1) afternoon, after further tests confirmed they do not have Covid-19 infection.
In an update on Thursday night, the ministry revised the number of community cases from three to one. The sole case is a permanent resident.
It said the two cases were removed as they were found to not have the coronavirus after initial results showed they were borderline-positive.
Neither the cases nor their contacts were exposed to risk of infection due to the initial classification, MOH added.
Giving a breakdown of the 15 imported cases reported on Thursday, MOH said they include four special pass holders who are crew members of a ship that arrived from Malaysia on Sept 23.
They had not disembarked from the ship, and were subsequently sent to a hospital after testing positive for Covid-19 while on board.
The other imported cases comprise three Singaporeans, two permanent residents, two work pass holders, one work permit holder, two student's pass holders and one short-term visit pass holder.
Eight of the 15 imported cases arrived in Singapore from India between Sept 17 and 28, including two Singaporeans. All 15 were placed on stay-home notice upon arriving in Singapore.
The other Singapore citizen returned from Indonesia on 19 Sept, while one work pass holder returned from France on Sept 20.
The work permit holder returned from the Philippines on Sept 18.
MOH confirmed a total of 19 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, taking Singapore's total to 57,784.
Separately, Junction Nine in Yishun and the Orchis Food Court at Changi Airport Terminal 1 were among places visited by Covid-19 patients while they were still infectious.
MOH provides the list of locations that infectious Covid-19 patients visited for at least 30 minutes to get people who were at those places at the same time to monitor their health.
It has said that close contacts would already have been notified and there is no need to avoid these places as they would have been cleaned if necessary.
Migrant workers living in dormitories made up the remaining three of the 19 coronavirus patients announced on Thursday.
One patient was identified earlier as contacts of previous cases, and had been quarantined to prevent further transmission. He was tested during his quarantine period.
The other two were detected through surveillance testing.
The number of new daily cases in the community has remained stable at an average of less than one case per day in the past two weeks.
The number of unlinked cases in the community has also remained stable at an average of less than one case per day over the same period.
With 24 cases discharged on Thursday, 57,497 patients have fully recovered from the disease.
A total of 44 patients remain in hospital, with none in intensive care, while 201 are recuperating in community facilities.
Singapore has had 27 deaths from Covid-19 complications, while 15 who tested positive have died of other causes.
