Singapore Mystery Covid Surge Fades With Cases Below 4,000
Singapore’s Covid-19 daily case count fell back to its recent baseline after a mysterious surge this week.
(Bloomberg) -- Singapore’s Covid-19 daily case count fell back to its recent baseline after a mysterious surge pushed infections above 5,000 earlier this week, with authorities yet to report the reason for the spike.
A total of 3,432 new cases were recorded as of noon yesterday, of which 252 were in migrant worker dormitories and nine were imported cases, the health ministry said in a statement. The weekly infection growth rate is 1.13, and authorities have signaled they want to see this fall below 1 before they can ease domestic social curbs further.
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Daily infections had surged above 5,000 for the first time on Oct. 27 due to an unusual spike in cases confirmed within a few hours, prompting authorities to say they were investigating the surge and would monitor trends over the next few days.
Singapore has one of the highest vaccination rates in the world, allowing its government to open borders up with vaccinated travel lanes including to parts of Europe, Australia, Canada and the U.S. It’s now trying to ease the strain on the healthcare system by maintaining domestic restrictions at least until late November, including limiting social gatherings to two people.
The strain on intensive care beds continued to ease, as the percentage of ICU beds in the country being used fell to 72.8% yesterday, from 79.8% the day before. That’s still elevated from about two-thirds on Oct. 19. The health ministry said Tuesday that an additional 100 ICU beds will be ready next week.
As of Oct. 27, 84% of Singapore’s population have completed their full vaccination regimen, while 14% have received boosters.
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