Singapore’s recent Covid-19 wave is subsiding, according to the government task force coordinating the city-state’s pandemic response.
The Omicron XBB variant-driven wave, which averaged 8,000 cases a day at its mid-October peak, is now averaging fewer than 4,000 cases daily, according to Ministry of Health data. Singapore’s MOH said 99.7% of those who got Covid over the last four weeks reported mild or no symptoms.
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Singapore, which has one of the world’s highest vaccination rates according to data compiled by Bloomberg, will progressively roll out additional bivalent vaccine booster shots for people age 18-49 years starting from Nov. 7. The process will start with older individuals in the 40 to 49 age group in the initial phase.
“As an international hub, whenever a very transmissible subvariant emerges, we may be one of the first cities in the world to experience it,” Health Minister Ong Ye Kung said in a Facebook post announcing the vaccine booster rollout. “Therefore, we cannot be complacent.”