Category: Medical Care

SINGAPORE, Singapore Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong, said today that, he expects COVID-19 daily cases to continue rising for some weeks, and that the country’s healthcare system will still be under pressure.

“We can slow, but we cannot stop the Delta variant,” said Lee, when delivering his message on updating the COVID-19 situation in Singapore.

He said, the surge of daily cases will level off and cases will start to decline, at a timing that is unknown exactly right now. But from the experience of other countries, it will hopefully be within a month or so.

The prime minister said, it has been a long campaign against COVID-19. “The war continues, but we are in a much better position now than a year or six months ago.”

“Sometimes it may not feel like it, but we are making steady progress towards the new normal,” the prime minister said.

Singapore’s Ministry of Health announced last night that, the country added 3,590 cases of COVID-19 on that day, bringing the total tally in the country to 120,454. This is the fourth consecutive day when the daily new cases surpass 3,000.

The ministry also said that six more cases have passed away from complications due to COVID-19 infection, bringing the death toll to 142.

Lee said, Singapore must protect its healthcare system and workers at all costs, in order to get through the pandemic safely. He asked Singaporeans to support this effort by continuing to abide by prevailing Safe Management Measures (SMMs) and cutting back on social activities, to slow the spread of the virus, getting vaccinated, conducting self-test regularly to avoid infecting others, and recovering at home if infected, unless having serious illness or vulnerable family members.

He also said, it will take Singapore three to six months to get to the new normal, when the country can ease restrictions, have light SMMs in place, and cases remain stable.

He said, with vaccinations, COVID-19 has become a treatable, mild disease for most people. “So for 98 percent of us, if we catch COVID-19, we can recover by ourselves at home, just as we would if we had the flu.”

He also said that as part of living with COVID-19, Singapore must also connect itself back to the world. In particular, the country must continue to re-open its borders safely.

Singapore has started Vaccinated Travel Lanes with Germany and Brunei, and recently announced another with South Korea.

Lee said that Singapore is implementing more such arrangements, especially with countries whose COVID-19 situations are stable, so as to keep the country connected to global supply chains and help to preserve Singapore’s hub status.

Source: Nam News Network

SINGAPORE, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Saturday said the republic must press on with its strategy of “Living with COVID-19”.

“We should respect COVID-19, but we must not be paralysed by fear. Let us go about our daily activities as normally as possible, taking necessary precautions and complying with SMMs (Safe Management Measures),” he said while addressing the nation on the current COVID-19 situation.

Lee noted that “Living with COVID-19” has not been a smooth and easy journey for Singapore.

The prime minister recalled that in August, after reaching 80 per cent vaccinations, the republic eased up the Heightened Alert.

“We expected cases to go up, as more people resumed activities and interacted with one another. But the numbers went up more sharply than we had anticipated, because the Delta variant was so infectious,” he said.

The prime minister noted that the next few months “will be trying” for the republic as daily cases were expected to continue rising for some weeks.

“Our healthcare system will still be under pressure. We can slow, but we cannot stop the Delta variant,” he said.

Lee said at some point, the surge will level off, and cases will start to decline.

“We don’t know exactly when, but from the experience of other countries, hopefully within a month or so.

After the surge stabilises, Lee said Singapore might still see future surges, especially if new variants emerge and might have to tap “the brakes” again if cases again grow too fast, to protect its healthcare system and healthcare workers.

“But we will be better able to cope with future surges. Our capacity and processes continue to improve. As more people are exposed to the virus and recover, our immunity levels will increase, and COVID-19 will spread less quickly among us.

On how will Singapore know when it gets to the new normal, Lee said that : “It will be when we can ease off restrictions, have just light SMMs in place, and cases remain stable – perhaps hundreds a day, but not growing.”

“When our hospitals can go back to business as usual. When we can resume doing the things we used to do, and see crowds again without getting worried or feeling strange,” he added.

As at noon Oct 8, Singapore reported 3,590 new cases of COVID-19 infection bringing the total caseload for the republic to 120,454.

Meanwhile, as of Oct 7, 83 per cent of the Singapore population has completed their full regimen or received two doses of COVID-19 vaccines.

Source: Nam News Network

SINGAPORE— Singapore and South Korea have agreed to jointly launch Vaccinated Travel Lanes (VTLs), which will start from Nov 15, 2021, according to the Singapore Ministry of Transport.

The jointly launched VTLs will be the first of its kind between two major aviation hubs in Asia and build on these longstanding relations to safely revive cross-border air travel and people-to-people flows.

“I am pleased that both countries have agreed to jointly launch VTLs that will re-open general travel between our two countries, which has been disrupted for the past 20 months,” said the republic’s Minister for Transport S. Iswaran in a statement on Friday.

Iswaran said both Singapore and South Korea have made excellent progress in vaccinating their populations and the VTLs reflect the trust both countries have in each other’s ability to manage the COVID-19 situation.

“This is another milestone as we re-open Singapore’s borders, and resume air travel in a careful and calibrated manner,” Iswaran said.

Before COVID-19, the statement said both republics were among each other’s top travel destinations, with a total of 64 weekly passenger services connecting the two countries and carrying 1.6 million passengers annually.

Under the VTLs, fully vaccinated travellers will be able to travel between Changi Airport and Incheon International Airport, and be subjected to COVID-19 Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) tests, in lieu of serving quarantine or Stay-Home Notice, it said.

There will be no restrictions on the purpose of travel or requirements for a controlled itinerary or sponsorship, said the ministry.

To support the VTLs, the ministry said both parties have also reached an agreement on the mutual recognition of COVID-19 vaccination certificates.

This will allow fully vaccinated travellers with proof of vaccination issued on either side to enjoy vaccination-differentiated safe management measures in both countries, it said.

Under the VTLs, the ministry said travellers must meet the eligibility criteria and adhere to the prevailing border control measures and public health requirements for travel into the respective countries.

More details of the VTLs will be announced in due course, it added.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

GENEVA— The World Health Organization (WHO) announced an initiative to vaccinate 40 percent of the population of every country against COVID-19 by the end of 2021 and 70 percent by mid-2022, by prioritizing vaccine delivery to low-income countries, particularly those in Africa.

“Today, WHO is launching the Strategy to Achieve Global COVID-19 Vaccination by mid-2022,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at a press briefing. “The strategy outlines the road we must all take together to achieve our targets of vaccinating 40 percent of the population of every country by the end of this year, and 70 percent by the middle of next year.”

According to Tedros, achieving these targets will require at least 11 billion vaccine doses, which is an allocation problem instead of a supply problem.

“With global vaccine production now at nearly 1.5 billion doses per month, there is enough supply to achieve our targets, provided they are distributed equitably,” he said.

According to WHO’s records, more than 6.4 billion vaccine doses have now been administered globally, and almost one-third of the world’s population is fully vaccinated against COVID-19. However, low-income countries have received less than half of one percent of the world’s vaccines. In Africa, less than five percent of people are fully vaccinated.

Earlier this year, WHO set a target for all countries to vaccinate ten percent of their populations by the end of September, but 56 countries didn’t make it. That has prompted UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to join the WHO chief to launch the latest strategy.

“Vaccine inequality is the best ally of the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Guterres, but “through dose sharing, swaps, technology transfers and other priority actions, it is possible to reduce deaths and minimize suffering, prevent health systems from being overwhelmed, resume social and economic activities, and reduce the risk of dangerous new variants.”

The UN chief also renewed his appeal to G20 for help, adding that “their meeting later this month will be an opportunity to deliver.”

“I urge all global stakeholders to step up, mobilize their resources and turn this strategy into a reality,” he said.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

YANGON – The death toll of COVID-19 reached 18,034 in Myanmar yesterday, after 36 more deaths were reported, according to a release from the Ministry of Health.

A total of 1,394 new COVID-19 cases were reported in the past 24 hours, bringing the tally to 474,419 cases in the country yesterday, the release said.

According to the ministry’s figures, a total of 427,941 patients have been discharged from hospitals, and over 4.45 million samples have been tested for COVID-19, so far.

Myanmar detected its first two positive cases of COVID-19 on Mar 23, last year.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

KUALA LUMPUR— The Malaysia’s Health Ministry has granted conditional approval for the Comirnaty vaccine to be used as a booster shot at least six months after the second dose for those aged 18 and above.

Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the matter was decided during the 365th Drug Control Authority (DCA) meeting on Friday.

“The Comirnaty vaccine produced by Pfizer Manufacturing Belgium NV (Belgium) and BioNTech Manufacturing GmbH, Germany was earlier approved for conditional registration on June 15 for individuals aged 12 and above.

“This is the first COVID-19 vaccine approved as a booster dose in the country,” he said in a statement.

Dr Noor Hisham said the approval of the conditional registration required information on the quality, safety and effectiveness of the vaccine to be monitored and evaluated based on the latest data from time to time to ensure that the benefit over risk comparison remained positive.

“The ministry is always committed in improving access to COVID-19 vaccine products in Malaysia by ensuring that they have been evaluated in terms of quality, safety and effectiveness by the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA) and approved by DCA,” he added.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

JAKARTA – Indonesia’s drug and food authority BPOM, said yesterday, it has issued an emergency use authorisation (EUA) for the Zifivax COVID-19 vaccine, produced by Chinese biopharmaceutical company, Anhui Zhifei Longcom.

“Today, BPOM again announces that we have approved a COVID-19 vaccine product under the trade name Zifivax, which was developed with a recombinant protein sub-unit platform,” BPOM’s head, Penny Lukito, told a virtual press conference.

Lukito explained that the Zifivax vaccine has passed the third phase of clinical trials with 28,500 subjects in Indonesia, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Ecuador, and China.

In Indonesia, the third phase of the clinical trial involved around 4,000 people aged between 18 and 59 years old.

The clinical trial concluded that the efficacy of the Zifivax vaccine reached 81.71 percent, after seven days of injections and 81.4 percent after 14 days.

Zifivax is also effective against the new variants of the SARS CoV-2 virus, namely Alfa (92.93 percent), Gamma (100 percent), Delta (77.47 percent), and Kappa (90.0 percent).

This is the tenth vaccine that has received an emergency use permit from the Indonesian government.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

KUALA LUMPUR— A total of 392 positive COVID-19 cases involving variants of concern (VOC) was detected in Malaysia from Sept 25 until Wednesday, according to Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

Of the total, he said 384 cases were of the Delta variant and eight others were of Beta variant.

He said the latest development brought the cumulative number of cases categorised as VOC and Variants Under Monitoring (VUM) to 2,252 cases.

Dr Noor Hisham said of the 2,252 cases detected, a total of 2,232 cases were VOC and 20 others were variants of interest (VOI).

“Overall, there are 1,996 Delta variant cases, 222 Beta variant cases and 14 Alpha variant cases are in the VOC category,” he said.

The World Health Organisation has, on Sept 30, listed Theta, Kappa and Eta under the VUM. Previously, all three were categorised as VOI.

Now, only Lambda and Mu are categorised as VOI.

Meanwhile, Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah in post on his social media platforms on Thursday said the daily tally of new COVID-19 cases in Malaysia increased slightly with 9,890 cases recorded over the past 24 hours compared to 9,380 cases recorded on Wednesday.

He said the increase brings the cumulative number of cases to 2,313,727.

He said Sarawak remains the state with the highest number of cases at 1,413, followed by Selangor (1,402), Kelantan (1,032), Johor (993), Sabah (820), Perak (794), Penang (721), Terengganu (699), Pahang (564), Kedah (503), Melaka (260), Kuala Lumpur (250), Perlis (200), Negeri Sembilan (180) and Putrajaya (59).

Dr Noor Hisham said that as of 5 pm Wednesday, 55 per cent of intensive care unit (ICU) beds and 50 per cent of non-ICU beds were in use.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK