11 more COVID deaths, record 3,703 new cases in Singapore

SINGAPORE — The Ministry of Health (MOH) on Saturday (9 October) confirmed a record 3,703 new COVID-19 cases in Singapore, bringing the country's total case count to 124,157, as well as 11 more deaths due to the disease.

Saturday marks the fifth day in a row that Singapore reported over 3,000 new daily cases. It is also the 20th day in a row with fatalities from the virus reported here and the most ever reported in a single day's report.

Of the new cases, 2,868 are in the community, 832 in the migrant worker dormitories and three are imported.

Singapore's 143rd through 153rd COVID-19 fatalities are all Singaporeans: five men and six women aged between 56 and 90. A total of 52 people here have succumbed to the disease this month.

Amongst the latest fatalities, four had been unvaccinated against COVID-19, three had been partially vaccinated and four had been vaccinated. Ten of them had various underlying medical conditions, while a partially vaccinated case had no known medical conditions. The 56 year-old case had been partially vaccinated against COVID-19, and had multiple underlying medical conditions.

Amongst those who have died over the last 28 days, 30.6 per cent were fully vaccinated and 69.4 per cent were unvaccinated or partially vaccinated.

MOH is monitoring five large clusters with new cases. Among the clusters are the Toa Payoh/Kim Keat Avenue Dormitory, which has 13 new cases and 40 in total, and the Pasir Panjang Wholesale Centre, which has one new case and 344 in total.

Over the last 28 days, of the 52,807 infected individuals, 98.4 per cent had no or mild symptoms, 1.3 per cent required oxygen supplementation, 0.1 per cent required intensive care unit (ICU) care, and 0.2 per cent has died.

As of Saturday, amongst all COVID-19 community cases who have been onboarded or admitted, 15,606 (76.5 per cent) cases are undergoing home recovery, 2,875 (14.1 per cent) cases are in community care facilities, 360 (1.8 per cent) cases are in COVID-19 treatment facilities, and 1,569 (7.7 per cent) COVID-19 patients are currently warded in hospital. A total of 302 cases require oxygen supplementation and 40 are in the ICU.

As of Friday, about 9.4 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered under the national vaccination programme. Some 4.6 million have received at least one dose of the vaccine, with some 4.54 million having completed the full vaccination regimen.

To date, about 600,000 eligible persons have been invited to receive their booster doses – 392,555 of them have received their booster shots while another 80,000 have booked their appointments.

Separately, 211,620 doses of other vaccines recognised in the World Health Organization’s Emergency Use Listing (WHO EUL) have been administered as of Thursday, covering 111,898 individuals.

This means that 83 per cent of the population have completed their full regimen, or received two doses of COVID-19 vaccines, and 85 per cent have received at least one dose.

On Saturday, the multi-ministry taskforce gave an update on the new safe management measures.

Among them, from next Wednesday (13 October), only up to two persons per group who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 can dine in at hawker centres and coffee shops, and enter shopping malls and attractions.

Booster vaccination shots will be offered to persons aged 30 years and above, healthcare and frontline workers who have completed their vaccination regimen around six months ago from Saturday.

The protocols and procedures for testing and isolation of COVID-19 cases will be significantly simplified from Monday.

In addition, the Home Recovery Programme will be extended to unvaccinated persons aged 12 to 49 years, vaccinated persons aged 70 to 79, and children aged five to 11.

Meanwhile, vaccinated travel lanes (VTLs) will be opened for fully-vaccinated travellers from eight more countries to Singapore from 19 October: Canada, Denmark, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, the UK and the US.

This is in addition to the previously announced VTLs for fully-vaccinated travellers from South Korea, Brunei and Germany.

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