Covid-19: Record 113 unlinked infections; rise in number of patients who need oxygen support

• There were 191 new Covid-19 cases on Sept 2, the highest single-day tally recorded since July 20
• Of the 187 locally transmitted cases for the day, a record 113 were not linked to reported infections
• A total of 341 infected people were linked to eight bus interchanges
• The Bugis Junction cluster has grown to 246 with eight new cases
• There are 27 patients in serious condition and in need of oxygen support, up from 22 the day before

SINGAPORE — There has been an increase in the number of Covid-19 patients who are in serious condition and require oxygen support to breathe, data from the Ministry of Health (MOH) on Thursday (Sept 2) showed.

In its nightly update on the coronavirus situation here, MOH said that they were 187 new locally transmitted cases of Covid-19, including a record 113 that were not linked to earlier infections.

Along with four imported cases, there were a total of 191 new cases for the day.

This is the highest single-day tally recorded since July 20, when there were 195 cases.

The number of cases linked to Covid-19 clusters at bus interchanges has grown to 341 with another 21 added.

SERIOUSLY ILL

Data from MOH showed that there are 27 patients who need oxygen support to help them breathe — up from 22 the day before.

The number of patients who are in intensive care units has remained at five since Aug 30.

Among these five patients under intensive care and 27 with serious illness, 12 are fully vaccinated.

Of those who have fallen very ill, 22 are patients aged above 60, of whom 12 are not vaccinated or partially vaccinated.

MOH stressed that there is continuing evidence 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 patients who became severely ill or died is 8.2 per cent, while that for the fully vaccinated is 1.1 per cent.

There are 528 Covid-19 patients who are hospitalised as of Thursday, up from 499 the day before.

65 ACTIVE CLUSTERS

There were no new clusters on Thursday and three were closed.

With that, there are now 65 active Covid-19 clusters here, each having between three and 1,155 cases.

Ten more cases were added to the cluster at Toa Payoh Bus Interchange, the largest among the various interchanges with 104 now.

For the rest of the interchanges:

• Boon Lay has 74 cases after five new cases were detected

• Jurong East has 30 after adding two

• Bishan has 29 after adding one

• Tampines has 24 after adding one

• Clementi has 23 after adding two

Of note, the Bugis Junction mall cluster has grown to 246 cases with eight more added, while there was one more case detected at the Institute of Mental Health. The hospital now has 15 cases.

MOH had earlier reported that there were 187 locally transmitted cases on Thursday, with 113 not linked to earlier infections.

Of the 74 linked to confirmed cases, 56 had already been quarantined and 18 were detected through surveillance testing.

Among the cases are three seniors above the age of 70 who are not vaccinated or partially vaccinated, and are at risk of serious illness.

There were also four imported infections — one was detected on arrival and three developed the illness while in isolation.

Overall, the number of new cases in the community has more than doubled from 405 in the week before to 922 in the past week.

The number of cases with no known links in the community has nearly tripled from 118 in the week before to 332 in the past week.

The seven-day moving average number of all linked community cases and all unlinked community cases is 84.3 and 47.4 respectively.

Singapore has recorded a total of 67,991 coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic.

VACCINATIONS

As of Sept 1, 80 per cent of the population had completed their full regimen or received two doses of Covid-19 vaccines, and 83 per cent had received at least one dose.

For other vaccines recognised in the World Health Organization’s Emergency Use Listing such as Sinovac, 168,484 doses had been administered as of Sept 1, covering 85,860 individuals.