Singapore — First, a good word from the Health Minister Ong Ye Kung:
“One of the highest vaccination rates in the world and growing natural immunity could protect Singapore from a Covid-19 resurgence like that currently engulfing Europe and the US, even if another wave hits as expected,” the minister told the Asia Summit on Global Health on Wednesday in Hong Kong.
But then, there’s that not-so-good word in there — “could”.
As the infectious disease specialists who spoke on Thursday’s weekly Covid-19 webinar by the National University of Singapore said, there are many uncertainties ahead.
The low and slow vaccination rate in less developed countries offers the virus that causes Covid-19 the chance to produce more variants that could be more virulent, more transmissible and more deadly.
In Singapore, the situation now is that unvaccinated people here are five times more likely to die of causes related to Covid-19, while people who are vaccinated are half as likely to die from Covid as they are to die from the flu.
The minister added that this is proof that the virus may be endemic, given that enough people are vaccinated, as the South China Morning Post reported.
In Singapore, almost 25 per cent of the population have already received booster jabs, and 85 per cent of the population, or 94 per cent of the eligible population, are fully vaccinated, with two Covid-19 jabs.
The minister also said that he believed it’s possible that ICU cases and deaths can be kept as low as possible, comparable to what happens when there is a flu wave.
“Even when it’s a wave you can withstand it. There are casualties but you are able to work through it with society still functioning very normally,” he added.
However, he underlined how important the next two weeks will be for Singapore, as the authorities cannot tell whether it’s time to relax more pandemic restrictions, including easing work from home requirements, which could be next, or to further delay reopening until they know the direction of the outbreak.
With the most recent announcement that five people, regardless of whether they are from the same household, can dine together, he cautioned that “cases ought to go up.”
“On the other hand, we are also rolling out boosters at a fairly decent pace. We are also seeing more people recovering safely, and there will be natural immunity. With all three measures in place, it applied brakes on the natural rise of infections. We will have to monitor closely for the next two weeks, and then we will know,” he added.
Mr Ong is the first minister from a foreign government to have set foot in Hong Kong since the pandemic began. He said in a social media post on Wednesday (Nov 24), when the summit was held, that he was glad to be able to participate along with senior health officials from the region, including Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam.
“All of us shared the conviction that the virus cannot stop us from collaborating and connecting, and we will beat the virus together,” he added. /TISG
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