Right on track!

[dredd]

The vaccinate or regular test regime is making good progress in getting the remaining 20% unvaxxed by choice to see the light.

Malls, supermarkets among sectors to be included in COVID-19 'vaccinate or regular test' regime​

A healthcare worker at National Centre for Infectious Diseases receives one of the first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine in Singapore on Dec 30, 2020.

• Singapore to expand "vaccinate or regular test" regime to more people, including mall staff, supermarket workers, and taxi and private hire car drivers.
• Selected short-term pass holders to be offered COVID-19 jabs under Singapore's vaccination programme
• Singapore to assist neighbouring countries by donating and swapping vaccines

13 Aug 2021 10:55PM(Updated: 13 Aug 2021 11:33PM)
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SINGAPORE: Workers in shopping malls and supermarkets as well as taxi and private hire drivers will be included in Singapore's COVID-19 "vaccinate or regular test" regime when it starts on Oct 1, said the Ministry of Health on Friday (Aug 13).
Last mile delivery workers, driving school and private driving instructors as well as public transport frontline staff will also be included in the regime, which was first announced last week.

The "vaccinate or regular test" regime requires unvaccinated individuals in some workplace settings to be tested for COVID-19 twice a week using antigen rapid tests.
Workers who are already under the regime include those in healthcare, eldercare and settings with children aged 12 and below. They also include those who interact with customers in high-risk mask-off settings, such as at Singapore’s borders or COVID-19 frontline work, as well as those in the public service, food & beverage establishments, gyms and fitness studios, and personal care services.

VACCINATIONS FOR SHORT-TERM PASS HOLDERS​

MOH also said on Friday that Singapore will open up vaccinations to groups of short-term pass holders who are in the country for "long periods of time".
This comes after a "good majority" of Singaporeans, permanent residents and long-term pass holders have been vaccinated, the ministry said.
Eligible short-term pass holders will be notified through SMS progressively from Aug 18, said MOH. The ministry did not provide more details on eligibility.

MORE CLINICS TO OFFER VACCINATIONS​

MOH also announced that the number of public health preparedness clinics offering jabs under the national vaccination programme will be increased to more than 60 by the end of August, from 44 now.
This will make it more accessible and convenient for seniors to get their vaccinations, said the ministry.
From Aug 18, all Singaporeans, permanent residents and long-term pass holders aged 12 and above will also be able to walk into any polyclinic or participating clinic to get their first dose of a vaccine without a prior appointment.
This followed earlier announcements that people who have not received their first dose can walk into any vaccination centre offering the Pfizer-BioNtech/Comirnaty or Moderna jabs without a prior appointment.
Providing an update on community vaccination efforts, MOH said that 6,600 seniors have been inoculated through the deployment of mobile vaccination teams and home vaccination teams to date.

As of Thursday, 84 per cent of people aged 60 and above have completed their full vaccination regimen, while 89 per cent have received at least one dose. More than 115,000 people in this age group remain unvaccinated, said MOH.

ASSISTING NEIGHBOURING COUNTRIES​

Additionally, Singapore will also assist its neighbouring countries by donating or swapping of COVID-19 vaccines, said MOH on Friday.
"We have made good progress in our vaccination programme and have set aside sufficient vaccine supplies for our immediate needs," said MOH.
The ministry added that this will help to boost the overall resilience of the region against COVID-19.
On the local situation, MOH said that there has been a steady decline in cases over the last two weeks since Phase 2 (Heightened Alert) measures were introduced.

As of Thursday, the number of new local cases fell to an average of 69 cases a day in the past week, from 108 cases a day in the week before.
Singapore reported 49 new COVID-19 infections on Friday as well as its seventh death from the virus in August - an 84-year-old man who was not vaccinated and had a history of medical conditions.

 

[nayr69sg]

I truly envy you.

What's there to envy?

Once covid is over you can travel again. Most Singaporeans travel a lot. See the world.

Most are multi millionaires just by virtue of principal residence alone.

All got good pension in ther CPF. High pay low taxes.

I envy Singaporeans.

 

[dredd]

Singapore Vaccination Data (as of 14 Aug 2021)​

Received at least First Dose

4,507,848

Completed Full Vaccination Regimen

4,169,030

Total Doses Administered

8,547,113

 

[hbk75]

No wonder some intelligence report done in 2015 predicts that sinkapore population will be 3.5 million in 2025.

https://archive.is/0Ym90

 

[ginfreely]

You GUTLESS SELF ADMIT CANTONESE @Cottonmouth aka @glockman self admitted JEREMY QUEK ASIAN TURTLE SON OF WHORE hiding in rat hole act garang scam my family good name Knnbccb. Go to my facebook to scam my GOOD name to churn evil filthy lies of me a virgin as a fake virgin and dirty toilet bowl cheap cock sucker slut whore mistress and a dirty whore with millions of Indian customers and gula Melaka nipples and insult me pig and to harass me with porn photos AND TO ISSUE VIOLENT THREATS to win ok you dirty coward criminal?

 

[dredd]

On track towards 5 million Sinkees fully vaccinated. That's over 90%. Wonderful news for everyone as we move closer towards opening up in a post-pandemic world.

Singapore Completed Full Vaccination Regimen

4,261,137

 

[nayr69sg]

On track towards 5 million Sinkees fully vaccinated. That's over 90%. Wonderful news for everyone as we move closer towards opening up in a post-pandemic world.

Singapore Completed Full Vaccination Regimen

4,261,137

Wow can you imagine if the anti-vaxxers are right.......almost 5 million will die and be wiped off from SG population!

There will be oversupply of housing! Wah good property prices finally can drop!

This is great reset. I think is not a bad thing if it really happens. We all willingly took the vaccine so can't really blame anyone.

good for those who did not take the vaccine. Well good some ways bad some ways. Will be a challenge for the much smaller world population to keep things going as they were. Some sacrifices will need to be made.

 

[dredd]

Wow can you imagine if the anti-vaxxers are right.......almost 5 million will die and be wiped off from SG population!

There will be oversupply of housing! Wah good property prices finally can drop!

This is great reset. I think is not a bad thing if it really happens. We all willingly took the vaccine so can't really blame anyone.

good for those who did not take the vaccine. Well good some ways bad some ways. Will be a challenge for the much smaller world population to keep things going as they were. Some sacrifices will need to be made.

Nobody is going to die lah... Ok, that's technically not right coz' we will all die eventaually. Only not from this vaccine.

 

[nayr69sg]

Nobody is going to die lah... Ok, that's technically not right coz' we will all die eventaually. Only not from this vaccine.

Anything could happen

 

[dredd]

These Israeli COVID-19 Graphs Prove Pfizer Vaccine Works​

Unvaccinated Israeli elderly are eight times more likely to experience a severe case of COVID-19 than their immunized counterparts, according to Health Ministry data
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Despite a recent increase in the number of serious cases in Israel, including among the fully vaccinated, those who received both doses of the vaccine against COVID-19 are significantly less likely to experience severe illness, according to data released by the Israeli Health Ministry.

As of August 16, the ministry recorded 159 severe COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people among the unvaccinated over the age of 60, compared to 20 per 100,000 people among the fully vaccinated. This makes the unvaccinated elderly more than eight times as likely to experience a severe case than their immunized counterparts.

For those under the age of 60, the rate of severe illness among the unvaccinated stood at 2.4 cases per 100,000 people – 2.7 times more than the 0.9 per 100,000 among those who are fully vaccinated.

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Israeli Healthy Ministry COVID numbersCredit: Israeli Health Ministry
According to the data, while the risk of experiencing severe symptoms increases with age for both the vaccinated and unvaccinated, it rises much more dramatically among the unvaccinated.

For those aged between 60 and 69, there are 71.8 cases per 100,000 among the unvaccinated, as opposed to only 8.7 for the fully vaccinated. This rises to 208 and 20 cases, respectively, for those aged 70-79 and to 266 and 47 for those aged 80-89.

Speaking with Haaretz during a live Q&A last week, Prof. Ran Balicer, chairman of Israel’s expert panel on COVID-19, said “there’s no question” that people who are unvaccinated are at a higher risk of developing severe illness from COVID-19.

“You can see this in the most simple graphs published by the Health Ministry. When you look at Israelis above the age of 60 and you examine severe illness rates – not numbers, rates, which means the number of illnesses per a specific number of the population – then what you see is that among those who are unvaccinated, there’s a considerably higher rate of severe illness than among the vaccinated,” he explained.

While the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccine may have waned somewhat over the past several months, those who are vaccinated are protected five to 10 times as much as those who are unable or unwilling to receive the shot, said Prof. Nadav Davidovitch, director of the School of Public Health at Ben-Gurion University of the Desert, Be’er Sheva, and head of the Israeli Association of Public Health Physicians.

Both the length of time that has passed since vaccination and a patient’s age can affect the likelihood of their contracting a severe case of COVID-19. “Those who were vaccinated in January are somewhat less protected compared to those vaccinated in, for example, March,” Davidovitch said, adding that it is possible that the more infectious delta variant could also have an impact on the incidence of serious cases.

Israel saw a drop in new coronavirus cases Saturday, with Sunday’s Health Ministry data revealing 2,886 new cases. Serious cases rose to 348 on Saturday, 19 more than the previous day.

Some 5.8 million Israelis have received at least one shot of the coronavirus vaccine. And of them, 422,326 have received three doses as part of the new campaign to give booster shots to the elderly and other vulnerable people.

The Health Ministry said late last month that the effectiveness of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine in preventing infection and mild symptoms has dropped to 40 percent, although the data might be skewed because of issues with the small sampling size. It maintained that the effectiveness of the vaccine in preventing hospitalizations and severe symptoms stood at 88 percent and 91 percent, respectively.

In a statement on Monday, the Government Press Office said that Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz had held a discussion with the CEOs of Israel’s four national health maintenance organizations “in order to increase the pace of vaccinations around the country.”

During a televised speech last month, Bennett accused vaccine refusers of “endangering their health, their surroundings and all Israeli citizens.”

The purpose of the vaccine had less to do with preventing transmission than providing “protection against mortality and severe illness,” although such protection is a “welcome outcome,” explained Prof. Hagai Levine, an epidemiologist at Hebrew University and Davidovitch’s predecessor at the Association of Public Health Physicians.

While it now appears that there is “four or five times lower incidence” of severe cases among the vaccinated, a fuller examination of the data, correcting for age and preexisting conditions, may reveal that the vaccine “is even more effective than seen from this graph,” he said.

 

[dredd]

Singapore is trying to do what no other country has done: pivot away from COVID-zero. Will it work?​

BY
SIMON WILLIS
August 24, 2021 6:13 PM GMT+8

For a few months after Singapore detected its first case of COVID-19 on Jan. 23, 2020, the city was credited for its ability to control the pandemic without resorting to a lockdown. Targeted travel restrictions and aggressive contact tracing kept cases low in the city despite its proximity to China.

Yet as COVID became a global pandemic, Singapore was pushed to adopt more dramatic measures. On Feb. 8, Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong admitted that it might be “futile to try to trace every contact” as more untraceable local cases emerged. Then a March wave of imported cases drove the government to take drastic action: It closed its border on March 23, 2020, to all short-term pass holders and tourists.
That decision has been an economic and existential catastrophe for Singapore. As Southeast Asia’s most important trade and business hub, its wealth and raison d’être depend on openness. According to data from Oxford Economics, air transit supports, either directly or indirectly, 375,000 jobs in Singapore—about 10% of the workforce. It contributes $36 billion a year to GDP, about 12% of the total. Since the borders shut, Changi, Singapore’s famously efficient airport, has been running at just 3% of its pre-pandemic capacity—with predictable results. The country has endured the deepest recession in its history, and its government has had to spend $100 billion, or 20% of GDP, shoring up the economy.
Now Singapore is changing direction. The country is about to become the first to go from a zero-tolerance approach to COVID-19 to one that will allow COVID to become endemic in its population. Its new approach is a contrast to that of its counterpart and sometimes-rival Hong Kong, which closed its borders on March 25, 2020. Both cities—like many other places in Asia—adopted a “COVID-zero” strategy, using social distancing and, in Singapore’s case, lockdowns to eradicate local cases of COVID-19 while using travel restrictions and inbound quarantine to control imported cases. Now, more than a year later, Singapore is cautiously reopening, while Hong Kong’s government has announced a raft of new inbound quarantine restrictions.

Not that Singapore will allow life to return to normal. It is choosing to take it slow. First, it has set itself an unusually high bar for vaccination: It won’t begin to reopen until 80% of its population have been double-jabbed. By contrast, Britain lifted restrictions with about 65% fully vaccinated. Second, even when it reaches that threshold in early September, Singapore will reopen with a whimper rather than a bang. On Sept. 8, Singaporeans will be allowed to travel without quarantining on their return—but only to two countries with low rates of COVID-19, Brunei and Germany. For the time being, mask-wearing will remain mandatory, contact-tracing apps will remain in use, and restaurants will still have to abide by the 10:30 p.m. curfew.
Singapore’s caution may seem counterproductive, slowing its economic recovery and further frustrating a population eager to get off their island. But it is likely to pay off in the long run and may even hold lessons for other Asian countries searching for a way out of lockdown.

Singapore’s COVID story is a tale of two pandemics. The first took place among Singapore’s population of migrant workers, who are sequestered away in cramped, unhygienic dormitories. Once COVID got inside these compounds it was almost impossible to stop its spread. Last year around 55,000 workers tested positive, but a recent study confirmed that the real number was over 150,000. Despite the high case count, Singapore “got very lucky,” says Hsu Li Yang, an associate professor at the city’s Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health. “Most of the migrant workers are young and healthy, and the rates of severe disease remained low.”
The second, much milder pandemic took place among the population at large. A set of draconian measures kept the migrant workers shut away in their dormitories to prevent infection from spreading, and for most of the last year, daily infections in the community have been in the single digits. To date, only 49 people in Singapore have died of the virus.
Anxious to remind the world of the country’s hub status even as global travel was grounded, Singapore’s government attempted to capitalize on this success. Touting the city-state as a safe haven, it built a new business hotel at Changi Airport. Called Connect@Changi, the hotel was designed as a bio-secure bubble for face-to-face international meetings. The government also arranged green lanes for high-value business and diplomatic travel and offered Singapore as an alternative venue for the World Economic Forum, which usually takes place in the ritzy Swiss ski resort of Davos. Singapore was a hermit nation that seemed ready to welcome others into its cave.

The Delta variant barred the way. Unlike Britain, which signed vaccine contracts with several manufacturers while efficacy trials were still ongoing, Singapore waited for firm data before making its choice of Pfizer and Moderna. This decision delayed the arrival of doses. Between January and May Singapore jabbed just 20% of its people. By June, when Singapore suffered its own outbreak of Delta at a fish port and several karaoke bars, the figure was only 40%.
The Delta variant killed Singapore’s efforts to reopen: The World Economic Forum was canceled, as was the Shangri-La Dialogue, a security conference that had 23 visiting defense ministers on its roster of delegates. “The outbreaks showed us that the measures that worked against the older variants were not effective against the more transmissible COVID-19 variant,” says Hsu. “We became a lot more conservative and aimed for a higher percentage of the population to be vaccinated before we opened up again.”
Singapore is now reaching that point. In recent weeks, vaccine supplies have ramped up rapidly. Since the start of July, the rate of vaccination has risen from 40% to 76%. This gives the country an extra buffer against the virus. “We know the consequences of making an error are not that big anymore,” says Walter Theseira, an economist at the Singapore University of Social Sciences. “Earlier this year, they were huge.”
Several big events, of the kind that were canceled earlier this year, are scheduled to go ahead in the next few months. Ecosperity Week, a conference organized by Temasek, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, is due to take place in September. It will be followed in November by the Milken Institute’s Asia Summit and the Bloomberg New Economy Forum. “I am genuinely optimistic that these big in-person events are going to return in the second half of this year,” says James Crabtree, executive director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, which organizes the Shangri-La Dialogue. “You can see where the government is going. They recognize that Singapore is a hub, and they have to reopen. Vaccines are not the magic bullet, but they are the key to unlock this.”
If vaccines are the key, caution is the grease in the mechanism. Singapore’s own COVID situation may be under control and its vaccination rates high, but the rest of the region is awash with the virus. For several months now Indonesia has been a global epicenter of the pandemic, as COVID has surged through a largely unvaccinated population. Malaysia is also enduring a sharp rise in cases—so much so that it helped undermine support for the country's prime minister, Muhyiddin Yassin, who resigned last week.

The risk of new variants on Singapore’s doorstep is high; its reopening strategy is about balancing that risk with reward. The conferences and summits planned for the fall are a chance to show the world Singapore is getting back to business. A new variant could scupper that effort as easily as Delta scuppered the WEF.
In the longer term, Singapore's caution is a method of reputation management. Reopening successfully is not an event but a process—and one that shows you can stay open as the crisis morphs. “The way businesses measure risk has really changed a lot over the last couple of years,” says Steve Cochrane, chief economist for APAC at Moody’s Analytics in Singapore. "I’m not sure firms really took into account public policy processes related to black swan events before the pandemic, but they definitely do now. Countries that have taken a reasonable, measured approach will come out ahead.”

 

[dredd]

Wow! We crossed 80% vaccinated! Next step 90%!

Singapore crosses 80 per cent Covid-19 vaccination milestone: Ong Ye Kung​

People waiting in the observation area after getting their vaccine at Toa Payoh West Community Club on Aug 16, 2021.ST PHOTO: LIM YAOHUI

• PUBLISHED
  3 HOURS AGO

SINGAPORE - The nation's Covid-19 vaccination rate has reached a new milestone, with 80 per cent of the population having received two doses of the vaccine as at Sunday (Aug 29).
Revealing this in a Facebook post on Sunday, Health Minister Ong Ye Kung said: "Singapore has taken another step forward in making ourselves more resilient to Covid-19."
Mr Ong said more than 4,300 homebound individuals have received their Covid-19 jab by the home vaccination teams.

The Health Ministry receives about 700 requests for home vaccinations each week and it has tripled its home vaccination teams from 11 to 33 teams with help from 200 volunteer doctors and nurses and the Singapore Armed Forces, he said.
As a result, waiting time has been halved from eight weeks to four weeks, he added.
"We aim to complete all home vaccinations by end-Sept. That will be another important step forward," he said.

On Friday, the Health Ministry said that three unvaccinated seniors died of Covid-19 complications on Thursday and Friday. Two were "non-ambulatory and had limited movement outside of their homes", the ministry said in its nightly update.