1,461 new cases; infection growth rate dips to 0.79

There were 1,461 new Covid-19 infections reported in Singapore yesterday, down from 1,670 on Sunday.

This is the lowest number of daily cases recorded since Sept 27, when Singapore reported 1,647 daily Covid-19 cases.

The Covid-19 weekly infection growth rate stood at 0.79, slightly down from 0.81 on Sunday, said the Ministry of Health (MOH) in its daily update on the virus situation.

The infection growth rate has been below one for 10 consecutive days. The number refers to the ratio of community cases in the past week over the week before. A weekly infection growth rate that is consistently below one shows that the number of new weekly Covid-19 cases is falling.

The intensive care unit (ICU) utilisation rate was at 53.5 per cent yesterday, inching up from 52.9 per cent on Sunday.

There were five people aged between 61 and 105 who died of complications linked to Covid-19, MOH said. All of them, except for an unvaccinated case, had various underlying medical conditions, it added, without giving further details.

The latest deaths take the total number of fatalities in Singapore to 667.

The new infections yesterday comprised 1,415 cases in the community, 40 in migrant worker dormitories and six that were imported. Of the community cases, 247 are seniors aged 60 and above.

There are also 62 people who are critically ill and intubated in the ICU, which means they need ventilators to help them breathe.

The total number of cases in Singapore now stands at 253, 649.

Among the clusters under close monitoring is Sunlove Senior Care Centre in Buangkok, where three new cases were detected to bring the centre's total infection number to 21.

MOH said Pacific Healthcare Nursing Home has eight new cases, bringing the total Covid-19 infection count there to 23.