SINGAPORE, June 24 — The Government’s Covid-19 task force made a plea for more seniors to get vaccinated, stressing that the current 75 per cent vaccination rate for people aged 60 and above is "not enough”.

Making the appeal at the task force’s press conference today, Health Minister Ong Ye Kung said "we hope more (seniors) will come forward” because the key to transition into an endemic Covid-19 situation is vaccination.

The importance of vaccination could be seen from the clusters related to the one at 115 Bukit Merah View Market and Hawker Centre, Associate Professor Kenneth Mak said.

The director of medical services at the Ministry of Health (MOH) disclosed that seniors made up almost half (47 per cent) of the cases that were detected in relation to the cluster. However, most of those who were vaccinated had mild or no symptoms.

Trade and Industry Minister Gan Kim Yong, co-chair of the task force, said that more than half of those seniors had received at least one dose of the vaccination, and many are stable and recovering.

"If not, we could be seeing more dire consequences. So please take the vaccine to protect yourself and your loved ones.”

Assoc Prof Mak also reinforced the call for all who have yet to be vaccinated to step forward and "make use of the opportunities that are coming up to register and be vaccinated,” he added.

"Our seniors, in particular, will be hard hit if the clusters increase or if more clusters like what we see in Bukit Merah break through in our community.”

The 115 Bukit Merah View Market and Hawker Centre cluster had 82 cases as of Wednesday night, but 36.7 per cent of them were fully vaccinated, and 51.1 per cent were not vaccinated, he said.

Assoc Prof Mak also said that 46 of these cases were not household-related and 16 of the cases were detected from surveillance or community testing operations that were conducted. Twenty-seven cases were isolated or quarantined before detection.

One of the cases involved a sundry shop owner in the market, which had since spread to involve other store owners, tenants and several households, including those who patronised the market and food centre, he added.

The market and hawker centre will remain closed till June 26.

Assoc Prof Mak said that aggressive community surveillance was conducted in the Bukit Merah and Redhill areas over the last three weeks. The efforts involved at least 219,000 tests being performed in various areas in dormitories, workplaces and the community.

As a result, the community numbers have increased in the past week compared to the week before, but the proportion of cases with no known sources of infection has dropped from 25 per cent in the week before to 21 per cent in the past week.

Of those traced to confirmed cases, 46 per cent were already in quarantine.

And while 33 per cent were detected through surveillance in the past week, household transmission appears to be dropping, he said.

Those detected at the start of quarantine have also further decreased from 18.8 per cent on June 16 to 5.5 per cent on June 22.

This suggested that the authorities had managed to identify cases more quickly as a result of the aggressive testing, Assoc Prof Mak said.

Chiming in towards the end of the press conference to reiterate the appeal, Finance Minister Lawrence Wong, the other co-chair of the task force, said: "All our seniors, get yourselves vaccinated, we have simplified the process for you to get vaccinated, you don’t need to book in advance, just walk into a (vaccination) centre and you can get yourself jabbed.

"This call also goes out to everyone who has an elderly parent or if you have an elderly parent who is not vaccinated. Please persuade them to get vaccinated, take them to the centre to get them jabbed — you will be doing a lot to keep them safe.

"So don’t take the view that, ‘Oh, it’s okay, my elderly parent only stays at home, and is not going out much, so it’s all right’. But you may have people visiting your elderly parent and any visitor may well carry the virus into the home. So please, engage your parents, get them vaccinated as soon as possible.” — TODAY