30 fully vaccinated people test positive for Covid-19, majority asymptomatic: Gan Kim Yong

THE two Covid-19 vaccines currently approved for use in Singapore do provide "critical protection" against more virulent strains of the coronavirus, even if they do not eliminate the risk of infection completely, Health Minister Gan Kim Yong said in Parliament on Tuesday.

In his fourth update on the whole-of-government response to Covid-19 in a ministerial statement, he gave an update on the Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH) cluster, which sparked Singapore's worst resurgence of cases in about half a year.

Sequencing results indicate that recent clusters in the country, including the TTSH one, were driven by the B.1.617.2 variant that was first detected in India and is said to be more transmissible, said Mr Gan.

Seven staff and two patients among the 43 cases in the cluster were fully vaccinated, he said. They were all either asymptomatic or only exhibited mild symptoms, with none requiring oxygen support.

However, among the remaining 34 who were not vaccinated, six required oxygen, two are in intensive care, and one has died from Covid-19 complications.

"While the numbers are too small to draw firm conclusions, the findings do indicate that vaccination provides critical protection even against Covid-19 variants," Mr Gan said, urging all Singaporeans to get vaccinated when it is offered to them.

On the whole, 30 fully vaccinated individuals in Singapore have tested positive for Covid-19 as at May 10, with 57 per cent of them being asymptomatic, he said. So far, about 1.2 million individuals have completed the full vaccine regimen by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.

There were also another 24 imported cases that were already vaccinated.

"We knew from the start that vaccination is not 100 per cent efficacious but it prevents severe reactions to the infections and is likely to reduce onward transmission," said Mr Gan.

Meanwhile, 26 cases have been reassessed to be re-infections. The authorities are investigating whether these are due to general waning immunity over time or lack of cross-protection against specific variants of Covid-19 that the individual is naive to, he said, adding that an update will be provided when there is more information.