49 new COVID cases in Singapore, including 13 unlinked

SINGAPORE — The Ministry of Health (MOH) on Friday (13 August) reported 49 new COVID-19 cases in Singapore, bringing the country's total to 66,061 infections.

The ministry also announced the country's 44th COVID-19 related fatality, an 84-year-old Singaporean man. Six others have also died of COVID-19 complications so far this month.

Of the 49 new cases, 45 are locally transmitted including 13 unlinked infections. The ministry did not provide a breakdown of how many of them are in the community or are dormitory residents.

Among them are three patients above the age of 70 who are unvaccinated or partially vaccinated, and are at risk of serious illness, said the MOH.

There are four imported cases, of whom two were detected upon their arrival here while two developed the illness during their stay-home notice or isolation period.

Three new clusters were announced on Friday, while six have closed, bringing the total number of active COVID-19 clusters here to 116.

All three new clusters are named after case numbers and are linked to 11 cases altogether.

The largest addition of five new cases was made to the cluster at My First Skool at 54 Chin Swee Road, first announced on Thursday, now linked to 11 cases.

No new cases were added to Singapore's largest cluster at the Jurong Fishery Port, linked to 1,151 cases, as well as the second-largest cluster – linked to various KTVs – which has 252 cases.

The MOH noted that the number of new cases in the community has decreased from 671 in the week before to 380 in the past week. The number of unlinked cases in the community has also decreased from 191 in the week before to 108 in the past week.

It added that the seven-day moving average number of all linked community cases and all unlinked community cases are 38.9 and 15.4 respectively.

30 require oxygen supplementation; 10 in ICU

At least 64,380 cases in Singapore, or over 99 per cent of the overall total, have fully recovered from their infection and have been discharged from the hospital.

As of Friday, 488 cases are currently warded, most of whom are well and under observation.

There are currently 30 cases of serious illness requiring oxygen supplementation and 10 in critical condition in the intensive care unit (ICU) – seven among the 45 cases are fully vaccinated.

Of those who have fallen very ill, 34 are patients above the age of 60, of whom 32 are completely unvaccinated or partially vaccinated, said the MOH.

Apart from the 44 patients who have died from COVID-19 complications, 15 others who tested positive for the virus were determined to have died from unrelated causes, including three whose deaths were attributed to a heart attack and another four whose deaths were attributed to coronary heart disease.

Over the last 28 days, the percentage of unvaccinated who became severely ill or died is 9.6 per cent, while that for the fully vaccinated is 1.0 per cent, the ministry noted.

As of Thursday, about 8.29 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered under the national vaccination programme. Some 4.4 million have received at least one dose of the vaccine, with some 4.01 million having completed the full vaccination regimen.

Separately, 142,966 doses of other vaccines recognised in the World Health Organization’s Emergency Use Listing (WHO EUL) have been administered as of Thursday, covering 82,951 individuals.

This means that 74 per cent of the population have completed their full regimen, or received two doses of COVID-19 vaccines, and 81 per cent have received at least one dose.

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