Covid-19: 1,931 new cases and 13 more deaths in Singapore; weekly infection growth rate at 0.78

• There were 1,931 new Covid-19 cases in Singapore on Nov 20
• This was 197 more infections compared to the day before
• 13 deaths were registered for the day, bringing the tally here to 654
• There are 431 ICU beds, of which 245 are now occupied, including 100 by Covid-19 patients
• The ratio of community cases in the past week compared with the week before is 0.78

SINGAPORE — Singapore on Saturday (Nov 20) recorded 1,931 new cases of Covid-19 and 13 more deaths due to complications from the disease.

The daily case count is higher than the 1,734 reported on Friday.

In its nightly update on the coronavirus situation, the Ministry of Health (MOH) said that there were 40 patients who were unstable and under close monitoring in intensive care units (ICUs) to prevent further deterioration. This is down from the 46 reported the day before.

In addition, there were 60 patients who were critically ill and intubated in ICUs — down from 64 on Friday.

The number of patients who require oxygen support dropped to 199 on Saturday from 202 on Friday.

In total, there are 431 ICU beds, of which 245 are now occupied — 100 by Covid-19 patients.

The overall ICU utilisation rate stands at 56.8 per cent, down from 57 per cent on Friday.

MOH stressed that people aged 60 and above continue to be more adversely affected by Covid-19, especially if they are not vaccinated.

Among the new infections recorded on Saturday, 1,867 were in the community, 58 were residents of migrant workers’ dormitories and the remaining six were imported.

There were 333 people aged 60 and older among the community cases.

The ratio of community cases in the past week, compared with the week before, stood at 0.78 — a slight increase from the ratio of 0.77 reported on Friday.

This is the eighth day in a row that the week-on-week infection ratio rate has been below 1.0.

The 13 patients who died were aged between 62 and 98.

“All of them, except for an unvaccinated case, had various underlying medical conditions,” MOH said.

In total, 654 people have died of Covid-19 complications here.

Singapore has registered a total of 250,518 coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic last year.

LOCAL SITUATION

A total of 2,533 recovered patients were discharged on Saturday, including 349 aged 60 and above.

There are still, however, 1,367 patients who remain hospitalised — up from 1,346 on Friday.

Over the last 28 days, the proportion of local coronavirus cases who had mild or no symptoms was 98.8 per cent, MOH said. During the same period:

• 0.7 per cent of patients needed oxygen aid
• 0.1 per cent were unstable and under close monitoring in intensive care
• 0.1 per cent were critically ill and intubated in ICUs
• 0.2 per cent died

CLUSTERS UNDER MONITORING

Among the large Covid-19 clusters that are being closely monitored by the ministry, six had new cases — one more than on Friday.

A total of 10 new infections were added to these six large clusters.

VACCINATIONS

As of Nov 19, MOH said that 94 per cent of the eligible population — those aged 12 and above — have been fully vaccinated.

Among the total population, 85 per cent have been fully vaccinated against Covid-19 and 86 per cent have received at least one dose of a vaccine.

MOH added that 23 per cent of the total population have received their vaccine boosters.

In the past seven days:

• The number of fully vaccinated patients who were critically ill in ICU was at 0.5 per 100,000 people and for non-fully vaccinated patients, it was 4.8
• The number of fully vaccinated patients who died was 0.1 per 100,000 people and for non-fully vaccinated patients, it was 1.0
• For fully vaccinated patients aged 60 and above, the number who were critically ill under intensive care was 1.9 and for those not fully vaccinated, it was 42.3
• The number of fully vaccinated patients aged 60 and older who died was 0.2 and for those not fully vaccinated, it was 10.4