Around 132,000 individuals aged 18 years and above remain unvaccinated, while around 300 persons are medically ineligible.

And while the Government will continue to try to convince those who are medically eligible to get inoculated, it is "harder and harder" to convince them as the number gets smaller, said Health Minister Ong Ye Kung in Parliament on Monday (Jan 10).

Mr Ong was responding to 17 vaccine-related parliamentary questions filed by Members of Parliament (MPs) for the first Parliamentary sitting of the year on Monday.

Responding to the questions on booster jabs, Mr Ong said that about 46 per cent of the population has received their boosters so far.

“We have recently brought some 900,000 individuals aged 18 to 29 into the booster programme, of whom 700,000 are already eligible to receive their boosters today. Our booster coverage will continue to expand over the month of January,” he added.

The validity period of 270 days for full vaccination status is also a “strong signal” to the population to get their boosters promptly, said the minister.

Mr Ong said that it is too early to tell if there will be a need for further booster shots and noted that Israel is the only country that has authorised a fourth dose of the Covid-19 vaccine for non-immunocompromised individuals so far.

Nevertheless, he said that it could be "a possible future scenario" to have regular booster shots, as is the case with endemic infectious diseases like the influenza.

NUMBER OF COVID-19 DEATHS

Responding to Workers' Party MP Dennis Tan's (Hougang Single Member Constituency) query on the breakdown of Covid-19 deaths, Mr Ong said there were 802 such deaths last year, of whom 555 were not fully vaccinated.

"Although the unvaccinated is a small proportion of our population, they contributed to 70 per cent of the deaths in 2021," said Mr Ong.

The remaining 247 were vaccinated with a range of locally available vaccines, said Mr Ong. This figure translates to about 30 per cent of fully vaccinated individuals who died from Covid-19 last year.

The minister also provided crude incidence rates for deaths per 100,000 individuals based on the vaccines they took:

79 deaths per 100,000 were patients who had not been fully vaccinated

11 deaths per 100,000 were those vaccinated with Sinovac,

7.8 per 100,000 were vaccinated with Sinopharm,

6.2 per 100,000 were vaccinated with Pfizer-BioNTech

One per 100,000 were vaccinated with Moderna

"These rates are only indicative, as I mentioned the sample size is small, and they also do not account for other factors which may affect mortality such as the age and timing of vaccination," said Mr Ong.

STEEP RISE IN OMICRON CASES EXPECTED IN COMING WEEKS

Mr Ong said that given the transmissibility of the Omicron variant, the Government expects the number of Covid-19 cases to rise steeply in the coming weeks and for the variant to become the dominant variant in Singapore within a few weeks.

He noted that the overall local infection number has been creeping up to a few hundred a day, with Omicron cases accounting for 40 per cent of all cases.

As of Sunday night, Singapore had recorded 4,322 Omicron infections so far, including 308 seniors aged 60 and above.

“Eight of them out of the 4,322 needed oxygen supplementation, and all of them have been taken off oxygen after a short few days. None required Intensive Care Unit (ICU) care as yet,” said Mr Ong.

“In comparison, if these 4,322 infections had instead been caused by Delta, we would expect 50 to 60 patients needing oxygen supplementation, ICU care or to die,” he added, but warned that it was still early days and circumstances could change.

Mr Ong said that the responses that the Government developed against the Delta variant will continue to be relevant against Omicron, but with some adjustments, said Mr Ong.

These include the roll out of vaccinations and booster shots, the expansion of Singapore’s healthcare capacity and safe management measures, said Mr Ong.

Responding to questions by MPs on whether there is likely to be a tightening of measures because of the Omicron wave, Mr Ong said the Covid-19 ministerial task force hopes not to do so.

“When the Delta wave subsided late last year, we refrained from being too jubilant and over-relaxing restrictions. That would have been a mistake. We kept our masking requirements, did not allow back night entertainment, and kept group sizes at five.

“It is the ministerial task force’s hope that we can ride through the Omicron wave with the current safe management measures posture. If we have to tighten the restrictions, it will be as a last resort when our healthcare system is under severe pressure,” said the minister, who co-chairs the task force.

Source:
courtesy of TODAY

by NAVENE ELANGOVAN

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