5 of 10 new COVID cases in S'pore are local; most added to Changi hospital cluster

SINGAPORE — The Ministry of Health (MOH) on Tuesday (29 June) confirmed 10 new COVID-19 cases in Singapore, taking the country's total case count to 62,563.

Of them, five are local cases in the community and all are linked to past infections. Tuesday marks the 65th consecutive day with local cases reported.

The five remaining cases are imported – four were detected upon their arrival, while one developed COVID-19 during their stay-home notice or isolation period.

Three clusters are now closed, bringing the total number of active COVID-19 cases in Singapore to 34. The clusters are "Case 63844", linked to three cases; "Case 63660", linked to seven; and "Case 63399", linked to four cases.

The largest active cluster in Singapore is at the 115 Bukit Merah View market, which is linked to 91 cases.

Three of the five linked infections in the community have been added to the Changi General Hospital cluster, which now has 13 cases.

The cluster at the hospital was first linked to a 35-year-old Singaporean man who works as a porter there and was confirmed to have COVID-19 on 23 June. The fully-vaccinated man had tested preliminarily positive for the Delta variant.

One is linked to the 105 Henderson Cresent cluster, which now has 14 cases. It was first linked to a 67-year-old Singaporean man who is a retiree. The fully-vaccinated man was confirmed to have COVID-19 on 17 June.

The remaining linked community case has been added to the "Case 64394" which now has four cases. The cluster was first linked to an 81-year-old Singaporean man who is a retiree and was confirmed to have COVID-19 on 22 June.

The MOH said that the number of new cases in the community has decreased from 104 cases in the week before to 76 cases in the past week. The number of unlinked cases in the community has decreased from 17 cases in the week before to 12 cases in the past week.

It added that the seven-day moving average number of all linked community cases and all unlinked community cases are 9.1 and 1.7 respectively.

11 require oxygen supplementation; 3 in ICU

Over 62,000 cases in Singapore, or over 99 per cent of the total tally, have fully recovered from the infection.

Most of the 129 hospitalised cases are well and under observation. Of them, 11 require oxygen supplementation, while three – all aged above 60 – are in critical condition in the intensive care unit.

Apart from the 36 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.

"There is continuing evidence that vaccination helps to prevent serious disease when one gets infected. Over the last 28 days, 23 local cases required oxygen supplementation, were admitted to ICU, or passed away," said the MOH.

Of the 23 cases, 20 are unvaccinated, two are partially vaccinated and one – a patient who was already ill before being infected with the virus – is fully vaccinated.

Minimum interval between vaccine doses shortened

The MOH announced that from Tuesday, the minimum interval between the first and second doses of the vaccine will be shortened from six to eight weeks, to four weeks for both the Pfizer-BioNTech/Comirnaty and Moderna vaccines.

The two are currently the only vaccines approved for pandemic use in Singapore's national vaccination drive.

Those who have already received their first doses, and with second dose appointments currently scheduled six to eight weeks later, can also rebook and bring forward their second dose appointments.

The MOH will also bring forward the start date of the national vaccination programme for permanent residents and long-term pass holders in Singapore aged 12 to 39 years from the earlier announced date of Friday to Wednesday.

As of Monday, authorities have administered some 5.38 million doses of COVID- 19 vaccines under the national vaccination drive. Close to 3.28 million – or about 60 per cent of Singapore's population – have received at least one dose of the vaccine, of which some 2.1 million are fully vaccinated.

The MOH noted that the COVID-19 multi-ministry taskforce is changing the format of the daily COVID-19 press releases, as Singapore "move to a new phase of battling the pandemic, with a strong focus on preventing the virus from spreading, vaccinating our population and starting the process to transit to a new normal".

"Besides daily numbers, we will include information on the key trends of the local situation, clusters we are monitoring, the progress of vaccination, and the number of people who suffered severe form of the disease," it added.

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