News

1,734 COVID-19 Cases Reported on 19 Nov With 16 New Deaths

2021-11-20 , 8:25 am

It’s been nearly two months since the authorities tightened COVID-19 restrictions in late September, but it’s finally having a significant impact on the spread of the disease.

Fears that our daily caseload will breach the 5,000 again have all but dissipated, with case numbers frequently falling under 3,000.

Yesterday, it fell even further, and dropped below 2,000.

1,734 New COVID-19 Cases

1,734 new COVID-19 cases were reported yesterday (19 Nov), a decrease of 304 from the previous day’s tally.

The cases comprise 1,633 infections in the community, 97 in migrant worker dormitories, and four imported infections.

This is the lowest number of community cases since 27 Sep, the day our tightened restrictions kicked in.

Among the local cases are 269 seniors above 60.

16 COVID-19 Fatalities

One figure that unfortunately increased was the number of fatalities, as 16 more COVID-19 cases succumbed to the disease.

Aged between 52 and 93, all of them had various underlying medical conditions, except for an unvaccinated case.

This brings our death toll to 641.

MOH Closely Monitoring 5 Large Clusters

The Ministry of Health (MOH) is closely monitoring five large clusters with new cases, the largest of which is at Jenaris Home @ Pelangi Village, with 72 infections. 70 residents and two staff members have been infected there.

One case each was added to the clusters at Skool4kidz Preschool @ Yishun Orchid Spring and ECON Medicare Centre & Nursing Home, taking their respective totals to 17 and 11.

All cases at the nursing home are residents, while 11 students have been infected at the Yishun preschool.

Another preschool cluster – PCF Sparkletots @ Chong Pang Block 115B – grew to 23 after four more cases were linked to it. Of the 23 cases, four are staff, 10 are students, and nine are household members.

The last cluster is at Jamiyah Nursing Home, which grew to 28 cases. All those infected are residents.

1,346 COVID-19 Cases in Hospital; 110 in ICU

At the moment, there are 1,346 COVID-19 cases warded in hospitals, most of whom are well and under observation.

202 serious cases require oxygen supplementation and 110 are in the intensive care unit, comprising 46 cases who are unstable and under close monitoring, and 64 who are critically ill and intubated.

Our ICU utilisation rate is currently at 57%, which is the lowest since MOH first released information on it on 25 Oct, when the rate was 83.6%.

Over the past seven days, the number of fully vaccinated and non-fully vaccinated cases who have been critically ill in the ICU are at 0.6 and 4.9 per 100,000 population respectively.

The same figures for seniors aged 60 and above are 2.0 and 43.2 respectively.

Over the same period, the number of fully vaccinated and non-fully vaccinated cases who died are 0.1 and 0.9 per 100,000 population respectively.

The same figures for seniors aged 60 and above are 0.2 and 9.6 respectively.

Currently, 85% of our population has been fully vaccinated and 86% have received at least one dose. 22% have received their booster shots.

COVID-19 Child Vaccination Trial Could Begin Next Week

A COVID-19 vaccination trial for children could begin as early as next week.

The study, which will be carried out by the KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital, will involve 150 participants aged five to 11.

The children will receive two shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine – one-third of the adult dose, as recommended – and be observed 30 minutes after each dose.

Blood samples will be taken to monitor their antibody levels and they’ll be monitored for 15 months and asked to return to the hospital for regular check-ups.

The trial has already received an “excellent response”, according to reports.