Singapore’s government is closely tracking a new wave of Covid-19 infections in the island-nation after the estimated count of weekly cases nearly doubled in the week ended May 11.
The government “is closely tracking the trajectory of this wave,” the Ministry of Health said in a statement on Saturday. It said the estimated number of Covid-19 cases nearly doubled to 25,900 in the week of May 5 to 11, compared with 13,700 in the prior period.
Average daily Covid-19 hospitalizations rose to about 250 from 181 over the same period, the ministry said. It asked public hospitals to reduce their non-urgent elective surgery cases, and move suitable patients to care facilities to protect hospital bed capacity.
“We are at the beginning part of the wave where it is steadily rising,” Health Minister Ong Ye Kung said, according to a Straits Times report.
“The wave should peak in the next two to four weeks, which means between mid and end of June,” Ong added. The MOH said that to protect hospital bed capacity, public hospitals have been asked to reduce their non-urgent elective surgery cases and move suitable patients to transitional care facilities or back home through Mobile Inpatient Care@Home, an alternative inpatient care delivery model that offers clinically suitable patients the option of being hospitalised in their own homes instead of a hospital ward.
Ong urged those who are at greatest risk of severe disease, including individuals aged 60 years and above, medically vulnerable individuals and residents of aged care facilities, to receive an additional dose of the COVID-19 vaccine if they have not done so in the last 12 months.
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