SINGAPORE, April 14 — More than 30 per cent of current Covid-19 infections are reinfections, which is higher than the 20 to 25 per cent observed during the last infection wave, said Minister of Health Ong Ye Kung today.

Mr Ong, who was speaking at the Population Health Collective workplan seminar for Community Partners and General Practitioners, explained that this is because protection against infection from past infections or vaccination wanes over time.

As a result, when people get re-infected, it causes the number of Covid-19 cases to rise, said Mr Ong who also dispelled the misconception that the rise in local infections is mostly due to travellers bringing in the coronavirus.

“The understanding that this causes a rise in infections is incorrect. The virus is endemic, which means it is always circulating within our community,” he said.

"In such a situation, what drives our local waves is not imported infections, but re-infections of existing individuals in the community."

S'pore experiencing another Covid-19 infection wave

For the past month, Singapore has been in the middle of a Covid-19 infection wave but like all endemic disease, the Health Ministry no longer has "very granular data" on these infections, said Mr Ong.

He likened this to MOH being "hard put" to report the number of Influenza infections, for example, in a particular day or over a week because most people choose to recover at home on their own, and do opt not to get tested.

Nevertheless, he said that the percentage of patients with acute respiratory symptoms and who tested Covid-19 positive has gone up.

MOH, he said, estimates the daily infections have probably gone up from 1,400 a month ago to about 4,000 daily cases last week.

While there is this increase, the number is still a “small fraction” of the 20,000 or more daily cases Singapore used to experience during the peak of the pandemic.

“Our assessment is that the case numbers have likely stabilised this week,” he said.

No dominant strain

Mr Ong also said that there is currently no clear dominant strain of Covid-19 with multiple variants circulating in Singapore — XBB, XBB.1.5, XBB.1.9, XBB.1.16, XBB.2.3, BN.1, CH.1.1.

There is also no evidence that any of the current XBB strains cause more severe illnesses.

“The most important aspect of any infection wave is the severity of symptoms and whether patients become hospitalised," he said.

While the number of hospitalised Covid-19 patients has gone up, from 80 to 220 over the past month, this is still far below the peak of the pandemic, and also much lower than the number of patients hospitalised due to non-Covid-19 infections, said Mr Ong.

As for intensive care unit admissions, Mr Ong said they have remained stable and low, with less than 10 Covid-19 patients at any one time over the past month.

“What is happening is a clear demonstration of how far we have come,” said Mr Ong.

"Even during a Covid-19 infection wave like now, we continue to live life normally, not pre-occupied over infection numbers, and not constantly talking about it. This is what endemicity looks like."

Still, Mr Ong said that while the current Covid-19 wave is not severe, the additional caseloads do add to the heavy workload of the hospitals.

Those who are unwell should stay home and wear a mask, while those who are vulnerable or aged 60 and above should get vaccinated annually, he said. — TODAY