Health Minister Ong Ye Kung said Singapore should be prepared to see its daily COVID-19 cases reach 1,000 soon. The reason is, the number of daily cases in Singapore doubles every week.
“This is the 26th day of the current wave. The daily cases, as we expected, have doubled every week from 100 to 200, to 400, from 400 to 800, and are now in the fourth doubling cycle,” he said. , Saturday (18/9/2021).
“I think let’s be prepared for possibly crossing the 1,000 mark soon. That’s not unexpected, it’s the typical behavior of a transmission wave that usually peaks between four and up to eight weeks, or 30, 40, sometimes 50 days,” he continued.
Every country that has almost experienced a large wave of transmission, such as Indonesia. However, Singapore’s wave of infections is judged to be different from what other countries have experienced. The reason, cases in Singapore increased when the vaccination rate was also high.
“Others unfortunately faced such waves early in the pandemic, inflicting heavy casualties. For us, we will get through this only after we have fully vaccinated about 80 percent of our population,” Ong said.
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Singapore’s Ministry of Health noted that the average number of COVID-19 cases in Singapore increased from 146 cases per day two weeks ago to 682 cases per day in the past week. However, the number of serious cases remains low for now.
“This is largely due to the vaccination programme, which has covered 82 percent of our population to date. The incidence of severe disease is uneven, concentrating mostly on older, infected people who are not vaccinated,” he added.
However, Singapore is still at the beginning of a new wave of contagion and must continue to be vigilant.
The Minister of Health stressed that vaccination alone will not allow Singapore to live with COVID-19, taking into account other factors such as treatment, wearing of masks and testing regimes.
“Put all this together, then there’s a possibility, and I believe we can live with COVID-19 as a near-endemic disease. Get rid of any part, any component and I don’t think we’re going to make it,” he said.
“From here we have to start adjusting our social activities, especially those who are elderly or have chronic diseases. Start adjustments, start practicing NPI (non-pharmaceutical interventions), start testing, then I think we can coexist with the virus,” he explained.
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