Singapore: Three quarters of Covid-19 Singapore infection in the last four weeks are among vaccinated individuals, government data shows, as a rapid ramp-up in inoculation of city state leaving fewer people who are not vaccinated.
Singapore has been inoculating almost 75% of 5.7 million people, the second highest in the world after the United Arab Emirates, a Reuters tracker shows, and half the population is fully vaccinated.
It reports 1,096 cases transmitted locally in the last 28 days, where 484, or 44%, are people who are fully vaccinated, while 30% are partially vaccinated and the remaining 25% are not vaccinated.
There are only seven severe cases that require oxygen support and six of them are not vaccinated and one vaccinated partially, the Ministry of Health said.
“There is sustainable evidence that vaccination helps prevent serious illness when a person is infected,” said the ministry, adding all people who are fully vaccinated and infected not show symptoms or mild symptoms.
Experts say infection reported by vaccinated people does not mean vaccines are not effective.
“Because more and more people are vaccinated in Singapore, we will see more infections that occur among people who are vaccinated,” Teo Yik, Dean of Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health at the National University of Singapore (NUS).
“It is important to always compare it with the proportion of people who remain not vaccinated …. Suppose Singapore reaches a 100% level of full vaccinated … then all infections will come from people who are vaccinated and none of those who are not vaccinated.”
Data also shows that infection in the last 14 days among people who were vaccinated over 61 were around 88%, higher than the younger age group.
Linfa Wang, a professor at Duke-Nus Medical School, said the elderly had been shown to have a weaker immune response in vaccination.
In Israel, which also has a high level of vaccination, about half of 46 patients who were hospitalized in early July in severe conditions vaccinated, and the majority came from the risk group, according to health authorities.
Not immediately clear whether the data reflects the reduction of protection offered by the vaccine against the more contagious Delta variant, which has been the most common version of the virus in Singapore in recent months.
Singapore uses Pfizer / Bionontech and Moderna vaccines for its national vaccination program.
It recorded 162 Covid-19 cases which were transmitted locally on Thursday, close to 11 months high from the beginning of this week. The increase in cases encouraged the authorities to tighten the sidewalk at social meetings, when they encourage to increase the level of vaccination, especially among parents.
