Over 3 in 10 Covid-19 cases caused by reinfections; current wave not due to travellers: Ong Ye Kung

SINGAPORE — More than 30 per cent of current Covid-19 cases are reinfections, which is higher than the 20 to 25 per cent observed during the last infection wave, Minister for Health Ong Ye Kung said on Friday (April 14).

Mr Ong, who was speaking at the Population Health Collective workplan seminar for community partners and general practitioners, explained that this was because protection against infection from past infections or vaccination wanes over time.

As a result, when people get re-infected, it causes the number of Covid-19 cases to rise.

Mr Ong also dispelled the misconception that the rise in cases here is mostly due to travellers bringing in the coronavirus. 

“The understanding that this causes a rise in infections is incorrect. The virus is endemic, which means it is always circulating within our community,” he said. 

"In such a situation, what drives our local waves is not imported infections, but reinfections of existing individuals in the community."

ONGOING INFECTION WAVE

For the past month, Singapore has been in the middle of a Covid-19 infection wave, but like all endemic disease, the Ministry of Health (MOH) no longer has "very granular data" on these infections, Mr Ong said. 

He likened this to MOH being "hard put" to report the number of Influenza infections, for example, in a particular day or over a week, because most people choose to recover at home on their own and choose not to get tested.

However, he said that the percentage of patients with acute respiratory symptoms and who tested positive for Covid-19 has gone up.

MOH estimates that the daily infections have probably gone up from 1,400 a month ago to about 4,000 daily cases last week, he added.

Although there is this increase, the number is still a “small fraction” of the 20,000 or more daily cases that were reported during the peak of the pandemic.

“Our assessment is that the case numbers have likely stabilised this week,” he said.

NO DOMINANT STRAIN

Mr Ong also said that there is now no clear dominant strain of the coronavirus, with multiple variants circulating in Singapore: XBB, XBB.1.5, XBB.1.9, XBB.1.16, XBB.2.3, BN.1 and CH.1.1.

There is also no evidence that any of the current XBB strains cause more severe illnesses.

“The most important aspect of any infection wave is the severity of symptoms and whether patients become hospitalised," he added. 

The number of hospitalised Covid-19 patients has gone up, from 80 to 220 over the past month. However, this is still far below the peak of the pandemic and also much lower than the number of patients hospitalised due to non-Covid-19 illnesses.

As for intensive care unit admissions, Mr Ong said that they have remained stable and low, with fewer than 10 Covid-19 patients at any one time over the past month.

“What is happening is a clear demonstration of how far we have come,” he added.

"Even during a Covid-19 infection wave like now, we continue to live life normally, not pre-occupied over infection numbers, and not constantly talking about it. This is what endemicity looks like."

Still, even though the present Covid-19 wave is not severe, the extra caseloads do add to the heavy workload of the hospitals, he said.

People who are unwell should stay home and wear a mask, while those who are vulnerable or aged 60 and above should get vaccinated yearly, he advised.