SINGAPORE, Dec 22 — A new strain of Covid-19 that surfaced recently in the United Kingdom has not been detected in Singapore yet, but it is of concern to the Government given that it is more infectious, Education Minister Lawrence Wong said today.
“In fact, the preliminary assessment is that it is 70 per cent more infectious, which is significant, and therefore we think it is prudent to stop all incoming travellers from the UK during this period until we are able to learn more about this new strain of the virus,” said Wong, who was speaking to reporters after Singapore announced it would bar travellers from the UK.
Explaining the move, Wong said that while the initial analysis showed that the new strain is more infectious, the Government also needs to understand whether the strain could lead to a more severe disease or other impacts.
“Those are areas that we still need to understand further, and I think having this additional precaution now is necessary and prudent, because of the uncertainty and the risk,” said Wong, who is also the co-chair of the governmental task force tackling Covid-19.
On whether current measures in Singapore are adequate to tackle the recent flow of travellers from the UK, Wong said that there is “already protection”.
Firstly, there are “not very many travellers” from the UK. Secondly, incoming UK travellers already serve stay-home notices (SHN) in hotels, meaning that they are not exposed to the community, said Wong.
Nevertheless, he said the latest move to restrict travellers from the UK provides an additional level of precaution as there remain potential areas of leaks where an infected case could easily be transmitted to the community.
“We think this will be helpful, given the risk, and also because despite the SHN, you never know whether there will be exposure — for example, during the flight, the cabin crew, the workers in the airport, the staff at the hotel...”
He added: “Therefore, we decided to impose this new restriction to reduce passenger travel as much as we can for the next few days — it’s not permanent, but for us to have a better understanding of this new strain of the virus.
“If the strain were to be detected in Singapore, Wong said that the Government would have to be “very careful” about having all its safeguards in place and quickly contain and ring fence clusters once an infected person is identified.
In addition, the Government will seek to keep Singapore’s borders secure, which is why it has made the move to stop incoming travellers from the UK, added Wong.
However, he acknowledged that the new strain of the virus could still enter Singapore through another country as it is quite likely that it has already spread beyond the UK.
“So again, we are in a new situation, we have to stay vigilant, we have to monitor how the virus is spreading, how the new strain is spreading everywhere in the world. And then we have to constantly adjust our measures at the borders and within the community accordingly,” said Wong.
Frontline workers in healthcare will be first to be vaccinated
On Singapore’s first shipment of the Covid-19 vaccine which arrived yesterday evening, Wong said that the Government will target frontline workers in the healthcare industry to be inoculated between now and February.
When asked when the first person in Singapore will be vaccinated, Wong said he did not have the precise dates now but believed the “initial priority group” would be targeted sometime between now and January or February.
“It's not for the rest, it's not for the broad public, but within specific settings, hospitals, health care (and) frontline (workers). They will be informed and they will be vaccinated,” he said.
Wong added that more details will be shared as and when they are available.When asked about the frequency of vaccines coming into Singapore, Wong said that the Government has made advance purchases with three vaccine producers — Pfizer, Moderna and Sinovac but only Pfizer has been approved for use so far. Pfizer developed its vaccine with a smaller German partner, BioNTech.
“Only the Pfizer vaccine, so far, has been authorised for pandemic use. So I think for the other two vaccines even if they were to arrive, if they are not authorised for use, it's premature,” he said.
“We have to wait for the submissions of data and then the regulator will go through the due process to authorise.
“But assuming all three are authorised for pandemic use then yes, today we do have some rough indication, but it's still early days… and it can change because even the manufacturers themselves have not committed,” he said.
He added that the Government will provide vaccination schedules when ready, probably by January and that the vaccination programme will be done over months.
“We have said we think at this stage if all goes according to plan, we will have enough vaccines to vaccinate everyone by the third quarter of next year,” he said.
Mandarin Orchard Singapore hotel cluster
Wong was also asked about the Covid-19 cluster detected at Mandarin Orchard Singapore hotel over the weekend and how members of the public might have concerns about hotels that are used as an SHN dedicated facility as well as for staycations.
On Saturday, the Ministry of Health said that it is investigating 13 cases of coronavirus infection among individuals who had served SHN at Mandarin Orchard Singapore hotel as they all appeared to have been infected from a similar source despite arriving from different countries.
He noted that the two areas of operations in the hotel are kept quite separate.
“Protocols, safety arrangements are already put in place but, again, what happened in essence in Mandarin Orchard is yet another reminder that things can go wrong. SHN, by and large, in Singapore has been effective. We have had many, many months of experience with SHN and all the hotel operators have been responsible.
“In this case, we did not detect a breach yet, but somehow something had happened. We don't quite know what it is, but the genome sequencing suggests that there were travellers on SHN, who were infected who share the same strain or the same genome type in terms of the infection suggesting that something had happened.”
He added that further investigation needs to be carried out to understand how the cluster emerged. — TODAY
