Jump in number of Covid-19 patients who require oxygen support; 12 new clusters identified

• There were 12 new Covid-19 clusters in Singapore on Aug 4, all of which were linked to different individuals
• The Ministry of Health said that there are 42 patients who require oxygen support to help them breathe, with seven more in critical condition
• Most of these patients are not fully vaccinated
• In all, there were 95 new locally transmitted Covid-19 cases on Aug 4, including 30 unlinked infections
• Yuhua Hawker Centre will be closed from Aug 5 to 19 after seven infected people were detected there

SINGAPORE — There has been a jump in the number of patients infected by the coronavirus who are in serious condition and need oxygen to help them breathe, with 42 of such cases reported on Wednesday (Aug 4).

Based on data provided by the Ministry of Health (MOH) in its nightly update on the coronavirus situation, the 42 cases represent the highest daily tally in the last 28 days — and five more than the 37 patients reported on Tuesday.

In addition, there are seven patients who are in critical condition under intensive care.

“Eight among these 49 cases are fully vaccinated. Of these, six require oxygen supplementation while two require care in intensive care units (ICUs) as they have underlying medical conditions. Thirty-seven seniors above 60 years old, of whom 31 are completely unvaccinated or partially vaccinated, have fallen very ill,” MOH said.

Over the last 28 days, 77 local cases required oxygen support, were admitted to ICU or died.

“Forty-five were unvaccinated, 24 were partially vaccinated and eight were fully vaccinated,” it added.

There are 555 Covid-19 patients who are in hospital as of Wednesday.

CLOSURE OF YUHUA HAWKER CENTRE

Yuhua Hawker Centre will be closed for two weeks to all members of the public from Aug 5 to 19 after seven patients infected by the coronavirus were detected among people who worked at or visited the hawker centre, MOH said.

The closure is to break the chain of Covid-19 transmission and enable deep cleaning of the premises.

MOH will extend free Covid-19 testing to members of the public who have visited the Yuhua Market and Hawker Centre between July 21 and Aug 4 in order to “uncover any community infection cases”.

Details of the testing operations can be found at https://go.gov.sg/yuhua-testing.

12 NEW CLUSTERS

The formation of 12 new Covid-19 clusters on Wednesday — all of which have been linked to different individuals — meant that there are now 112 active clusters here, each having between three and 1,115 cases.

Earlier, MOH said that there were 92 new locally transmitted Covid-19 cases confirmed on Wednesday, including 30 that were not linked to earlier detected infections.

Of the 92 cases, 54 were linked to previous infections and had already been placed under quarantine.

Another eight infections, also linked to previous cases, were detected through surveillance testing.

Among the new cases is one senior aged above 70 who is not vaccinated and at risk of serious illness.

Besides the locally transmitted cases, there were three imported cases, making a total of 95 new Covid-19 cases confirmed on Wednesday.

The imported cases had been isolated on arrival in Singapore. One was detected upon arrival and the remaining two developed the disease while serving their stay-home notice or in isolation.

Overall, MOH said that the number of new cases in the community has decreased from 915 in the week before to 758 in the past week.

The number of cases with no known links in the community has, however, gone up from 202 in the week before to 235 in the past week.

The total number of Covid-19 cases in Singapore is now 65,410.

VACCINATIONS

As of Tuesday, MOH said that 64 per cent of the population had completed their full regimen or received two doses of Covid-19 vaccines under the national vaccination programme, while 77 per cent had received at least one dose.

In addition, 113,767 doses of Sinovac vaccines had been administered as of Tuesday, covering 76,571 people.