Minister of Health Ong Ye Kung said on 14 February that Singapore will be able to ease our Covid restrictions once the Omicron surge has reached its peak and the cases start to subside.
He added that they will be continuing to monitor the key indicators closely to make sure Singapore’s healthcare system is able to cope.
He said that one of the relevant aspects is the daily infection numbers, which is around 10,000 cases a day, noting that Singapore could hit up to 15.000 to 20,000 daily cases.
However, these top line figures show where we are on the epidemic curve, and that the impact of disease severity and healthcare capacity is more important.
He said: “So far, the impact has been significantly more moderate for the Omicron variant compared to the Delta variant.”
Ong cited Omicron being a less severe variant than Delta, as well as a high percentage of vaccination among Singapore’s population.
He added: “Today, we still observe a significant difference in incidence of severe illness amongst the vaccinated and boosted, and not fully vaccinated, especially amongst seniors. So vaccines continue to make a huge difference.
Because of these reasons, while the daily infection numbers are high, the vast majority of cases have mild or no symptoms, and very few develop severe illness and require oxygen supplementation or ICU care, or have passed away.”
Ong also said: “We have to watch the trend very closely, but for now, the case mortality due to the Omicron variant is not very different from the number of deaths related to various viral infections pre-Covid.
Prior to COVID-19, over 4,000 patients a year (or over 10 a day) passed on due to pneumonia, usually caused by infections.”
He also noted that about 0.05% of Covid cases require intensive care, with the duration of stays in the ICU also being shorter.
He added that Singapore has 113 ICU beds, which can be increased to 350 beds at short notice and even further increased to 500 beds should the need arise.
He said that unlike during the Delta wave, the ICU wards are not coming under pressure and are in good shape.
Touching on the topic of healthcare workers, Ong said: “Our healthcare workers have been battling the pandemic at the frontlines for more than two years now. They have persevered through the Delta wave, and are now fighting the Omicron wave. I want to convey my deepest appreciation to them.”
“For nurses, the average attrition during the two COVID-19 years of 2020 and 2021 is about 8 percent, comparable to 2019. Absenteeism rate due to COVID-19 has been manageable, and is about 2 percent now.
We do not take this for granted, and will continue to support our healthcare professionals. We are also working closely with clusters to help them recruit new healthcare workers.”