Covid-19: 2 of 3 new clusters linked to staff at Bishan, Sengkang bus interchanges; 75% of population vaccinated

• Two of the three new Covid-19 clusters reported on Saturday involve staff members from the Bishan and Sengkang bus interchanges
• The remaining new cluster is linked to an individual 
• There were fewer patients in intensive care or needing oxygen support 
• As of Friday, 75 per cent of Singapore’s population had completed their full vaccination regimen

SINGAPORE — Three new Covid-19 clusters have emerged, two of which involve staff members at two bus interchanges, the Ministry of Health (MOH) said, as its data showed that three-quarters of Singapore’s population are now vaccinated.

In an update on the coronavirus situation on Saturday (Aug 14), MOH reported two new clusters involving staff members from the Bishan and Sengkang bus interchanges.

The cluster involving Bishan interchange staff has nine infections, while the Sengkang one has 13 cases.

The remaining new cluster, which has three cases, is linked to an individual who was identified only by a case number.

In a statement early on Sunday, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) said that nine bus captains from Bishan interchange and five bus captains and two staff members from Sengkang interchange recently tested positive for Covid-19. 

Most of these cases were picked up early through routine proactive testing by bus operator SBS Transit. 

All affected bus captains and staff members have been vaccinated and are showing no or only mild symptoms. SBS Transit said in a separate statement that these workers were in isolation centres or hospitals. 

LTA said that there would be no impact on bus operations, and deep cleaning and disinfection have been carried out in the interchanges and affected buses. 

SBS Transit, meanwhile, will step up testing for all its bus captains at the two interchanges.

There are now 111 active coronavirus clusters in Singapore, each having between three and 1,155 cases.

MOH’s data showed that there were 26 patients who are seriously ill and need oxygen support, four fewer than the day before.

Nine patients are in intensive care, down from 10 the day before. 

Among the nine patients in intensive care and the 26 with serious illness, six are fully vaccinated.

And among the patients who have fallen seriously ill, 31 are seniors older than 60, 25 of whom are not vaccinated or partially vaccinated.

MOH said there was continuing evidence showing that almost all fully vaccinated individuals “do not suffer serious disease when infected, unless they had underlying medical conditions that made them more susceptible”.

“Over the last 28 days, the percentage of unvaccinated who became severely ill or died is 9.5 per cent, while that for the fully vaccinated is 1 per cent.” 

There were 451 hospitalised Covid-19 patients as of Saturday.

VACCINATIONS

As of Friday, 75 per cent of Singapore’s population had completed their full vaccination regimen, and 81 per cent had received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine. 

In all, more than 8.34 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech/Comirnaty and Moderna vaccines had been administered to 4.41 million people, with nearly 4.06 million having completed their full regimen. 

In addition, 145,688 doses of other vaccines recognised on the World Health Organization’s Emergency Use Listing, such as China’s Sinovac jab, have been administered to 83,327 people.

58 NEW COVID-19 CASES

On Saturday, Singapore recorded a total of 58 new cases of Covid-19, 57 of which were locally transmitted.

Among these, 17 were not linked to earlier infections.

As for the other 40 that were traced to previous cases, 29 had already been quarantined and the rest were detected through surveillance testing.

Among the locally transmitted cases is a senior above 70 years old who is not vaccinated and at risk of serious illness.

There was just one imported case that was detected and isolated on arrival.

On the whole, the number of new cases in the community has fallen to 377 this past week from 611 the week before.

The number of cases with no known links in the community has also dropped to 101 from 166 over the same period.

Singapore has recorded 66,119 Covid-19 cases and 44 deaths since the pandemic hit.