Minister of Health Ong Ye Kung said during the multi-ministry task force press conference on 22 April, that persons between the ages of 60 and 79 can now take a second booster shot if they want.
The second booster shot should be taken about 5 months after the person’s first booster shot, said Ong during the press conference.
Those 60 and above who are keen on getting their second booster shot, can walk in to any vaccination centre that offers mRNA vaccines, before 7pm to get their jabs.
At the moment, these shots are recommended for those above 80, the medically vulnerable, and residents of aged care.
More than 17,000 senior citizens have already taken their 2nd booster shot within 2 weeks of the Expert Committee’s recommendation, which is about 30% of the eligible people.
Ong added that there are two key considerations when deciding on the rolling out of a second booster proactively.
The first is whether subsequent Omicron of new variant waves break out in other countries, and when they do, we will have a good idea when a new wave may emerge locally before rolling out a second booster before it happened.
The second consideration is the level of vaccine protection against severe illnesses in the population, who have already gotten their first shot.
Ong further added that so far it has been holding up well, with the vaccine efficacy remaining high across the different age groups, above 80%.
On what vaccines to use for the 2nd booster, he said it depends on the nature of the new variant of concern.
“However, if the new variant of concern is more dangerous than the Omicron variant, then it may require a different response strategy as far as the second booster is concerned.”
He added that two characteristics are used to determine if a variant is more dangerous:
- If it leads to more severe illness and deaths among the infected persons
- If it is more infectious than Omicron and dominates it.
“If it is both… we may then need to hunker down for six months or more while scientists develop a new variant-specific vaccine. This is one of the worst-case scenarios that we need to be psychologically prepared for.”