SINGAPORE, Oct 24 — Singapore yesterday registered 3,598 new cases of Covid-19 and six more deaths due to complications from the disease.
The Ministry of Health (MOH) said in its nightly update on the coronavirus situation here that there were 91 patients who were unstable and under close monitoring in intensive care units (ICUs) to prevent further deterioration, and 58 are critically ill and intubated in ICUs.
The number of patients who require oxygen support went down from 338 on Friday to 269 yesterday.
In its latest update, MOH also provided two new charts to reflect the current Covid-19 situation — one showing the daily adult ICU bed utilisation over the past two months, and another showing the ratio of community cases in the past week compared with the week before, also over the past two months.
In Saturday’s update, the first of these charts showed that there are a total of 362 ICU beds, of which 238 are now occupied. And of these, 149 are occupied by Covid-19 patients.
The second chart showed that the ratio of community cases in the past week compared with the week before stands at 1.14.
Earlier yesterday, Finance Minister Lawrence Wong, a co-chair of the national Covid-19 task force, said that this ratio is a “key indicator” that the Government is monitoring closely to decide when to ease safety measures. As long as the ratio is above 1, it means that infections are continuing to rise and putting pressure on the healthcare system, he added.
Among the new infections recorded on Saturday, 2,804 were in the community, 790 were made up of migrant worker dormitory residents and the remaining four were imported.
There were 471 seniors above the age of 60 among the community cases, MOH said.
The six who died were two men and four women aged between 61 and 91. They were Singapore citizens or residents.
Four were not vaccinated against Covid-19 and two were. All of them had various underlying medical conditions.
In total, 300 people here have died from complications due to the disease, including 199 this month alone.
Local situation
Singapore has registered a total of 169,261 coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic last year.
As of yesterday, there are 1,680 patients who are in hospital, 71 more than the day before.
Among all Covid-19 community cases who have been onboarded or admitted:
▪ 17,725, or 70.4 per cent of them, are undergoing home recovery
▪ 4,796 (19.1 per cent) are in community care facilities
▪ 1,680 (6.7 per cent) are in hospital, mostly for observation
▪ 960 (3.8 per cent) are in Covid-19 treatment facilities
MOH said that over the last 28 days, the percentage of local cases who had mild or no symptoms is 98.6 per cent.
▪ During the same period, 0.9 per cent of cases required oxygen aid, 0.1 per cent were unstable and under close monitoring in the ICU, 0.1 per cent were critically ill and intubated in the ICU, and 0.2 per cent has died
▪ Among those who required oxygen supplementation and ICU, 46.4 per cent were fully vaccinated and 53.6 per cent were unvaccinated or partially vaccinated
Clusters under monitoring
Among large clusters that are being closely monitored by the ministry, two had new cases. A total of 16 new infections were added to these two large clusters.
Ten new cases were linked to the Awwa Community Home for Senior Citizens located in Ang Mo Kio, bringing the number of infected people there to 59. MOH said that all of the cases there are residents of the home.
Six new cases were added to the Banyan Home@Pelangi Village cluster, a welfare home for the destitute located in Buangkok, bringing the tally there to 60.
Vaccinations
As of Oct 22, 84 per cent of the population has been fully vaccinated, and 85 per cent has received at least one dose.
A total of 9,752,204 doses of Covid-19 vaccines under the national vaccination programme (Pfizer-BioNTech or Comirnaty and Moderna) have been administered.
So far, 4,628,321 people have received at least one dose of vaccine under the national vaccination programme, and 4,571,975 individuals have completed the full vaccination regimen.
MOH added that to date, it has invited about 910,000 eligible people to receive their vaccine booster.
It said that 680,979 individuals have received their booster shots and another 88,000 have booked their appointments.
In addition, 237,336 doses of other vaccines such as Sinovac that are recognised in the World Health Organization’s Emergency Use Listing have been administered, covering 121,555 individuals. — TODAY
