Singapore extends Covid restrictions as cases were high

October 21, 2021: -On Wednesday, Covid restrictions in Singapore have been extended for four weeks; authorities announced after new daily cases hit a record high of 3,994 on Tuesday.

The curbs, limiting group sizes for social gatherings and making work from home the default, will now be in place until November 21, with a review due at the two-week mark.

“At the current situation, we face considerable risk of the healthcare system being overwhelmed,” Finance Minister Lawrence Wong said in a press briefing.

Those measures were meant to take effect from September 27 to October 24, and health authorities said they would review the restrictions again based on the Covid situation.

Singapore is tightening and loosening restrictions many times this year, easing them in response to the number of Covid cases. The government has repeatedly said that it wants to ensure the healthcare system is not overwhelmed.

At the press briefing, Health Minister Ong Ye Kung said the record number of cases would be a post-weekend spike.

On Tuesday, the health ministry said local hospitals were under “significant pressure and strain” as the patients in the intensive care unit rose to 71, according to official data released.

Of 1,650 isolation beds in public hospitals, 89% have been filled, a press release from the health ministry said. The release said that nearly 67% of ICU beds are occupied, though several patients were admitted for monitoring purposes.

“If need be, we will open up more ICU beds,” Ong said. “The coming leap will be to 300 beds, but that will be at the expense of more degradation of normal service and normal medical care.”

Health authorities also encouraged people to limit their social activities and said Tuesday that people visited malls or taken public transport in the past week.

The number of seniors that are unvaccinated being infected increased to around 100 a day. The health minister noted that this group was particularly vulnerable and at risk of falling very sick.

Official data showed that 1,738 cases are in hospital as of Tuesday, with 338 people requiring oxygen supplementation. The vast majority of patients in the last 28 days had either no symptoms or mild symptoms.

Since the pandemic, Singapore reporting 154,725 cases, and almost 84% of its population has been vaccinated. Some 246 people have died from Covid-19 in the Southeast Asian country of almost 5.45 million people.