SINGAPORE, Sept 4 — The Singapore government will not revert to stricter infection controls despite recent elevated numbers of Covid-19 case, because the country has entered a “new phase” where high levels of vaccine coverage are protecting Singaporeans from the virus, Finance Minister Lawrence Wong said yesterday.
Some 88 per cent of the population who are eligible for vaccination had completed their full vaccination regimen as of Thursday, MOH said in its latest update yesterday. This translates to about 80 per cent of the total population. Giving an overview of the situation at hospitals here, Dr Mak said that there has not been a significant surge in the number of patients who require intensive care, despite a spike in the number of community cases.
“The measures introduced reduced close-contact encounters sufficiently to ensure that the number of new cases that emerged were sufficiently suppressed, so that the demand for hospital isolation beds and ICU beds could well be met by the available resources that we have in our healthcare system,” Dr Mak said.Wong said that Singapore does not intend to make any further moves to opening up yet, because there is a time lag between the onset of infections and serious illnesses and deaths.
He disclosed that the clusters at the Bugis Junction mall and the bus interchanges have involved people who are relatively young or did not carry risk factors for worse outcomes.Asked if the large numbers of cases with no known sources of infection in the past few days is a concern, Dr Mak said that they are “not necessarily a cause for worry” since most cases first reported as having no links to confirmed cases in MOH’s daily reports were eventually linked.