Recovered Patients Will be Prioritised to Get 1 Dose of Vaccine to Boost Immunity

By
Sarah
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While the national vaccination programme is well underway, you might be wondering: what about those who were infected with COVID-19?

Do they need to get vaccinated too? Are they already protected from the virus?

Well, not quite.

Recovered Patients Will be Prioritised to Get 1 Dose of Vaccine to Boost Immunity

Health Minister Ong Ye Kung announced on Thursday (10 Jun) that experts have recommended that recovered patients should receive a single dose of vaccine to further boost their immunity against COVID-19.

Individuals who were infected with the virus are likely to still have a strong immune response within the first six months of infection, explained the Ministry of Health (MOH) in their press release on the same day.

This means that only those who had an earlier COVID-19 infection from over six months ago will get priority for a single dose of the vaccine.

According to The Straits Times, several studies have reportedly indicated that people who have had the virus generate an extremely strong response to the first dose of an mRNA vaccine, with an apparently little further boost from the second dose.

This was evident in a paper by the Cedars-Sinai hospital in Los Angeles in the United States published in April—which published that a single dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for individuals who previously were infected generated an immunologic response similar to that of individuals receiving two doses.

MOH added that recovered individuals would be able to register for the vaccine from today (11 Jun) onwards, so long as they are part of a population group that is already eligible for the vaccine.

Unless you were living under a rock, you’ll know that vaccinations are now open to those aged from 12 to 39 years old, so almost everyone is eligible to register for the vaccine now!

S’poreans Between 12 to 39 Can Now Book COVID-19 Vaccine Appointments

People in this group will be able to register online via vaccine.gov.sg and book an appointment from 11 June 2021 onwards.

Children who turn 12 this year must have crossed their birthday before they are eligible to book a vaccination appointment.

Under the national vaccination programme, children/wards below the age of 18 will require the consent of their parent/guardian to book a vaccination appointment. Parents/guardians can register interest for their child/ward to receive the vaccination on vaccine.gov.sg.

They will be required to give consent for their child/ward to receive the COVID-19 vaccination as part of the booking process. Parents/guardians are reminded to ensure that their child/ward brings along documentary proof of their consent to the vaccination site for verification.

After registration, registrants will be progressively invited to book their vaccination appointments via an SMS with a personalised booking link sent to the mobile number they registered with. Registrants can expect to receive this SMS a few days after registration.

The SMS may take up to two weeks for some, as more appointment slots for vaccination will be made available as more supplies arrive.

Those who had registered their interest earlier on vaccine.gov.sg will not need to re-register.

The invitation to register will be eventually extended to the rest of the population (non-Singaporeans in the group) over the coming months.

Read more about the update on the vaccination programme, here!

Featured Image: BaLL LunLa / Shutterstock.com

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Sarah
Email: [email protected]