Covid-19: 3rd time in a week new cases fall below 1,000; 2 more deaths

• Singapore registered 743 new Covid-19 cases on Dec 4
• Two more people died from complications due to the coronavirus
• The ratio of community cases in the past week, compared with the week before, slowed to 0.63

SINGAPORE — Singapore on Saturday (Dec 4) recorded 743 new cases of Covid-19, down from 766 the day before. 

There were two more deaths due to complications from the disease.

This is the third time in the past week that the daily coronavirus case count has dropped below 1,000.

In its nightly update on the coronavirus situation, the Ministry of Health (MOH) said that four patients were unstable and being closely monitored in intensive care units (ICUs) to prevent their conditions from deteriorating further. 

This is down from 13 such cases reported the day before.

In addition, there were 54 patients who were critically ill and intubated in ICUs — four more than on Friday.

In the meantime, the number of patients who require oxygen support dipped from 183 on Friday to 179 on Saturday.

In total, there are 424 ICU beds, of which 232 are occupied — 58 by Covid-19 patients.

The overall ICU utilisation rate stands at 54.7 per cent, down from 57.3 per cent on Friday.

MOH said that people aged 60 and older continued to be more adversely affected by Covid-19, especially if they were not vaccinated.

Among the new infections recorded on Saturday, 707 were in the community, 24 were residents of dormitories housing migrant workers and the remaining 12 were imported.

There were 116 people aged 60 and older among the day’s community cases.

The ratio of community cases in the past week, compared with the week before, stood at 0.63 — lower than the ratio of 0.71 reported on Friday.

This is the 22nd straight day that the week-on-week infection ratio has been below 1.

The two patients who died from Covid-19 complications were both aged 70.

“They had various underlying medical conditions,” MOH said, without elaborating.

In all, 746 people have died of coronavirus complications here.

Singapore has registered a total of 268,659 Covid-19 cases since the start of the pandemic last year.

LOCAL SITUATION

A total of 1,521 patients who have recovered from Covid-19 were discharged on Saturday, including 226 aged 60 and above.

There are still, however, 893 patients who remain hospitalised — 38 fewer than on Friday.

Over the last 28 days, the proportion of local coronavirus cases who had mild or no symptoms was 98.7 per cent, MOH said. In the same period:

• 0.8 per cent of patients needed oxygen aid
• 0.1 per cent were unstable and under close monitoring in intensive care
• 0.1 per cent were critically ill and intubated in ICUs
• 0.2 per cent died

The ministry added that it was closely tracking a coronavirus cluster at the THK Home for Disabled@Sembawang, which has four new cases, taking its total to 19. 

All the patients are residents of the home. 

VACCINATIONS

MOH said that as of Friday, 96 per cent of the eligible population have been fully vaccinated against Covid-19.

Among the total population, 87 per cent have been fully vaccinated and 87 per cent have received at least one dose of a vaccine.

The ministry added that 28 per cent of the total population have received their vaccine boosters.

In the past seven days:

• The number of fully vaccinated patients who were critically ill in ICU was at 0.5 per 100,000 people and, for non-fully vaccinated patients, it was 4
• The number of fully vaccinated patients who died was 0.1 per 100,000 people and, for non-fully vaccinated patients, it was 0.5
• For fully vaccinated patients aged 60 and above, the number who were critically ill under intensive care was 2 and, for those not fully vaccinated, it was 35.2
• The number of fully vaccinated patients aged 60 and older who died was 0.3 and, for those not fully vaccinated, it was 5.4