777 new Covid-19 cases; weekly infection growth rate rises to 1.69

[SINGAPORE] The weekly Covid-19 infection growth rate on Friday (Jan 7) was 1.69, up from Thursday's 1.5, said the Ministry of Health (MOH).

The figure, which has increased for the 14th consecutive day, refers to the ratio of community cases for the past week, over the week before.

A weekly infection growth rate that is more than one shows that the number of new weekly Covid-19 cases is still going up.

MOH reported 777 new cases on Friday, down from 813 the day before.

These comprised 396 imported infections, 366 in the community and 15 in migrant worker dormitories.

MOH added that there were 535 confirmed Omicron cases detected in Singapore, up from the 365 cases reported on Thursday.

Of the 535 cases, 251 are local and 284 are imported.

In addition, the ministry reported two new deaths from complications linked to Covid-19, which took the total number of deaths in Singapore from the virus to 837.

As at Friday, Singapore has recorded 283,991 Covid-19 cases in total.

The intensive care unit (ICU) utilisation rate was 43.2 per cent, down from the 47.1 per cent reported on Thursday.

There were 165 patients in hospital, with 10 requiring oxygen supplementation.

In the ICU, one patient required close monitoring, while 12 patients were critically ill.

A total of 91 per cent of Singapore's eligible population and 87 per cent of the total population has completed the full vaccination regimen under the national vaccination programme.

About 44 per cent of the total population has received their vaccine booster shots.

THE STRAITS TIMES