Coronavirus: Singapore running low on ICU beds; Indonesia braces for holiday surge
- The city state only had 60 empty beds left in intensive care units as of Monday. Of the 306 occupied beds, 171 were taken up by Covid-19 patients
- Elsewhere, Indonesia worries about travel during year-end holidays, and health authorities in Thailand record fewest infections in months
The overall ICU utilisation rate stood at 83.6 per cent as of Monday, the city state’s health ministry said, up from about two-thirds just under a week ago. Of the 306 occupied ICU beds, 64 were taken up by Covid-19 patients in critical condition and intubated, and 107 by patients in unstable condition and being closely monitored. The other 135 beds were taken for patients with ailments not related to Covid-19.
ICU bed capacity is being closely watched as authorities warn of the risk of Singapore’s health care system being overwhelmed. While the government is loosening border controls to allow in vaccinated visitors from more countries, it has extended strict curbs on the island to late November, including limiting social gatherings to two people. Officials have said rules may only be relaxed when the situation at the hospitals stabilises.
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“Our hospitals and health care workers continue to come under tremendous pressure,” Health Minister Ong Ye Kung said last week. He said more ICU beds will be opened up if needed, though that would affect normal services and medical care. ICU patients stay on average 15 days, and some up to a month, he said.
Singapore reported 3,174 new Covid-19 cases on Monday. There were 14 deaths from virus-related complications, all involving people with underlying medical conditions, according to the ministry. The ratio of community cases for the past week over the week before is 1.18. Officials are also watching for this figure to dip below 1 before potentially easing curbs.
Indonesia braces for holiday Covid-19 surge
Testing will be made mandatory on all modes of transport as tourist sites reopen, Luhut Panjaitan, coordinating minister for maritime and investment affairs who’s overseeing the pandemic response, said in his weekly briefing on Monday. Currently, negative PCR test results are required for passengers travelling by air.
Restaurants and bars should also adhere to health protocols to help minimise the spread of the virus, he said. This follows reports that some establishments have allowed large crowds in without logging on to the government’s tracing app, while prohibiting photos or videos to avoid public scrutiny, said Panjaitan.
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The Southeast Asian nation is on alert as its previous Covid-19 spikes have been preceded by long holidays. It saw its worst wave of infections in the midyear after millions of people travelled and gathered with families to celebrate Eid al-Fitr in May, helping accelerate the spread of the more infectious delta variant across the nation.
Covid-19 infections have since gone down sharply after the government expanded testing and reimposed stringent lockdown measures across the country. Indonesia added 460 cases on Monday, the lowest since May 26, 2020. Daily fatalities have also dropped to their lowest in more than a year.
“We can withstand the new wave by staying in control of the number of cases and keeping it below 2,700 per day,” Pandjaitan said.
Indonesia will likewise focus on vaccinating the elderly, which make up most of those who get severely sick or die from the virus. It expects to give a first dose to 168 million people before the year-end, while 123 million people should be fully vaccinated. Only a quarter of Indonesia’s 270 million population are fully inoculated against the disease, compared with 73 per cent for Malaysia and 82 per cent for Singapore, according to Bloomberg Vaccine Tracker.
Thailand detects first local Delta Plus case
One case of Delta subtype AY.1 was reported in the northern province of Kamphaeng Phet, while 18 cases of Alpha Plus, which has been spreading in neighbouring Cambodia, have been reported in three provinces, Supakit Sirilak, director general of the Department of Medical Sciences, said on Tuesday.
The local Delta Plus case was found in a patient at a field hospital by the Armed Forces Research Institute of Medical Sciences, he said. Thailand has so far detected 19 Delta subtypes, and AY.30 is the most common with more than 1,300 cases, Health Ministry data showed.
AY.4.2 sublineage, which was designated a Variant Under Investigation by the UK Health Security Agency, still hasn’t been detected in Thailand, and health officials will continue to collect more samples and investigate cases, Supakit said.
“The emergence of new variants is common during an outbreak, and it’ll be a significant occurrence if the variant is more infectious, lead to more severe cases, or more resistant to vaccines,” said Deputy Health Minister Satit Pitutecha. “At this point, there’s still no cause for concern, and authorities will monitor the situation closely.”
Thailand is set to allow vaccinated visitors from 46 jurisdictions to enter the country without a mandatory quarantine from November 1 as it loosens travel curbs to restart its struggling tourism industry. The country saw new virus cases drop to 7,706 on Tuesday, the lowest one-day tally since early July.
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South Korea approves self-produced Moderna vaccine
Samsung entered into a “fill and finish” deal with Moderna in May. This type of contract involves putting vaccines into vials or syringes, sealing them and packaging them up for shipping, but not making the vaccine itself.
The plant has yet to win approval from the US and European regulators to have the shots shipped outside the country, Samsung said.
South Korea said the Moderna shots produced by Samsung will be widely used in the current quarter, including as booster shots for high-risk people.
Reporting by Bloomberg, DPA, Reuters
