MOH to stop giving details of Covid-19 community cases

The Ministry of Health (MOH) will no longer disclose details of each new Covid-19 case detected in the community as the country moves towards a new phase of battling the pandemic, it said in a statement yesterday.

Information on individuals' ages and occupations, as well as the places they visited and the dates on which they tested positive, will not be provided.

Instead, the ministry's daily virus update will now detail progress made on the nationwide vaccination scheme, in addition to daily case numbers.

It will also give a breakdown of the number of people who have developed a severe form of the disease, and their vaccination status.

This decision was made by the multi-ministry task force tackling the pandemic, MOH said yesterday, adding that there will now be "a strong focus on preventing the virus from spreading, vaccinating our population and starting the process to transit to a new normal" as the country moves into a new phase of its fight against Covid-19.

"Besides daily numbers, we will include information on the key trends of the local situation, clusters we are monitoring, progress of vaccination and the number of people who suffered a severe form of the disease," it said.

About 3.28 million people in Singapore have received at least one dose of the vaccine since Dec 30 last year, with about 5.38 million doses administered so far.

This means that 57.5 per cent of Singapore's population has been partially vaccinated, while 36.8 per cent - or about 2.1 million people - have had the full two-dose regimen.

As at noon yesterday, 49,445 more people had received their first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine while another 5,298 were given their second dose under the national vaccination programme.

In yesterday's statement, MOH noted that there is continuing evidence that vaccination helps to prevent serious disease in those who have been infected.

Over the last 28 days, a total of 23 local cases required oxygen, were admitted to the intensive care unit, or died. Of this group, 20 were unvaccinated, while two were partially vaccinated.

The remaining patient was fully vaccinated but had already been ill before contracting the disease, MOH said.

A total of 129 coronavirus patients were hospitalised as at yesterday. Most of them were well and under observation.

Three were in critical condition in the intensive care unit. All three are over 60 years old and unvaccinated.