SINGAPORE'S vaccination rate is on track to hitting 70 per cent by National Day on Aug 9, with 67 per cent of the population having received both doses of the Covid-19 vaccine as of Thursday.

Those who have taken at least one jab now stands at 78 per cent of the population, and Health Minister Ong Ye Kung said on Friday that Singapore will have 80 per cent of people be fully vaccinated a month from today.

The government is adopting a "vaccination-differentiated" approach as it adjusts its safe management and border measures going forward. Fully vaccinated people will be able to engage in a wider range of activities - such as food and beverage dine-in for groups of up to five people from Aug 10 - compared to the unvaccinated.

With Singapore now having a higher vaccination coverage, MOH said it will recognise more Covid-19 vaccines in the World Health Organisation's Emergency Use Listing (WHO EUL).

From Aug 10, those who are fully vaccinated with the WHO EUL vaccines such as Sinovac-CoronaVac, Sinopharm and AstraZeneca will be eligible for the new vaccination-differentiated safe management measures.

A person will be considered "fully vaccinated" two weeks after they have received the full regimen of Pfizer BioNTech/Comirnaty, Moderna, or any WHO EUL vaccines.

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A higher vaccination coverage gives confidence that Singapore can start to re-open its economy, said MOH.

But it also flagged concerns over unvaccinated senior citizens, who may suffer severe illness if infected with the virus. It stressed that vaccination reduces the risk of infection and serious disease for those who test positive.

Over the last 28 days, among the 80 local cases infected with Covid-19 who are seriously ill, 72 were unvaccinated or partially vaccinated. Serious illness refers to conditions that require oxygen supplementation, admission to the intensive care unit (ICU), or which result in death.

Currently, 76 per cent of those aged 70 and above have completed two doses and 82 per cent have received at least one dose. There are still about 80,000 seniors that have yet to be vaccinated.

Singapore has ramped up measures to encourage more seniors to take the vaccine. This includes deploying mobile vaccination teams to locations where many seniors live, and to their homes.

Polyclinics and public hospitals are being asked to bring forward the appointments of seniors who are contraindicated, so that they can receive earlier advice on whether they can receive the vaccinations.

Even with the high vaccination coverage, Singapore may still experience vaccine breakthroughs and a large number of daily Covid-19 cases in the community, MOH said.

Mr Ong said that hospitals are starting to see fully vaccinated individuals who became severely ill.

"Unfortunately, this is inevitable as the majority of our population is now vaccinated, and among them, more people will get infected. Some of them might have pre-existing illnesses," he said.

He pointed out that while a 70 per cent vaccination coverage is considered very high by global standards, he said that "every additional individual vaccinated would strengthen our collective resilience and may mean saving another life".

"We must therefore strive to have as high a coverage as possible, because that will translate into fewer people in ICU, and even fewer deaths as we open up our economy and society," he said.

READ MORE:

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