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MOH stops issuing daily media releases on COVID cases

The Orchard Road crossing in Singapore is one of the busiest in the world, here seen an afternoon during the Covid-19 corona pandemics in October 2020. All people wearing masks to protect themselves.
Pedestrians at Orchard Road crossing. (PHOTO: Getty Images)

SINGAPORE — From Tuesday (7 December), the Ministry of Health (MOH) will stop issuing daily media releases on COVID-19 infection statistics, as the current wave of Delta infections subsides.

The announcement was made in its last daily media release on COVID-19 cases on Monday night.

In the release, MOH said it will continue to update the same infection statistics on its website on a daily basis.

The public can access information on the local COVID-19 situation, including hospital capacity, status of COVID-19 patients, vaccination progress and number of COVID-19 cases, at https://www.moh.gov.sg/.

One of the statistics being monitored by MOH is the week-on-week infection growth ratio.

“During the present wave of infection, we wanted to ensure that the ratio was below 1 before we eased any restrictions. As the present wave subsides and infection numbers start to stabilise, we can expect the ratio to trend towards 1.”

MOH will continue to monitor this indicator to assess how quickly the virus is spreading in the community. “For example if the ratio were to rise rapidly beyond 1 on a sustained basis, then it would mean an acceleration in the spread of infection, and potentially the start of a new wave of transmission.”

The ratio of community cases for the past week over the week before – or the weekly infection growth rate – is 0.64, down from Sunday's 0.66. This is the 24th day in a row where the figure is lower than 1.

Media statements on significant developments such as the Omicron variant will continue to be regularly issued by MOH.

On Monday, the MOH confirmed that two imported cases who were announced to have tested preliminarily positive for Omicron on 2 December are infected with the new variant. A third case was announced to have tested preliminarily positive for Omicron on Sunday.

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