Minister of Health Ong Ye Kung said in parliament yesterday (1 August) that about 60% of the population in Singapore has had Covid-19, based on blood samples from routine polyclinic cases.
He said that this doesn’t confer us herd immunity, and that by and large, scientists do not think herd immunity is achievable.
Snippets from Ong Ye Kung’s statement
“We are still in the middle of an infection wave driven by the Omicron variant BA.5. But, over the last 10 days, infection numbers have been falling and the week-on-week ratio has dipped below 0.9 over the last week. We should see the wave subsiding further this week.”
“We did not tighten any social restrictions during this current wave. Everyone went about their lives normally – going to work, visiting family members, going out with friends, and travelling in and out of Singapore.”
“However, life is not as normal in our hospitals. Without additional social restrictions, our healthcare system is bearing the brunt of the current infection wave. Healthcare workers have been very busy. Polyclinics and our General Practitioner clinics also saw higher patient volumes.”
“In such a situation, the key is to ensure hospitals are not overwhelmed, and that those who need urgent care can be attended to promptly. By and large, we have been able to achieve that.”
“The first important measure we took is to set aside sufficient bed capacity to cater to COVID-19 patients. So, in response to Mr Louis Chua, based on our worst-case scenario projection for the current wave, we have plans to set aside up to about 1,000 COVID-19 hospital beds for COVID-19 patients.”
“This is a dynamic plan, and fortunately, in the course of this infection wave, we did not have to activate all of those beds.”
“On record, we have about 1.7 million reported cases, which is about 30% of our population. The Ministry of Health (MOH) also systematically monitors blood samples from routine polyclinic cases and other healthy volunteers for signs of previous infection. From these samples, we estimate about 60% of local residents are likely to have been infected with COVID-19.”
“Notwithstanding, this does not confer us ‘herd immunity’. By and large, scientists around the world do not think herd immunity is achievable because the virus will continue to mutate, escape the protection of vaccines, and then infect people.”
“What is achievable is “population protection against severe illness”, through vaccinations. This is what enables our healthcare system to weather through an infection wave, even with high case numbers, because the translation of case numbers into severe illnesses is very low.”
Source: moh.gov.sg