askST: Why are more people vaccinated getting Covid-19 ?, Health news and featured articles

SINGAPORE – Fully vaccinated people currently account for 44% of Covid-19 cases in Singapore, raising questions about whether vaccinations are effective protection against the virus.

Experts say, however, that as Singapore continues on its upward trajectory to vaccinate more people, seeing more people vaccinated among infected cases is a mathematical certainty and not a reflection of vaccine performance.

In its daily update on Thursday evening (July 22), the Department of Health (MOH) revealed that 484 of the 1,096 locally transmitted infections in the past 28 days were fully vaccinated, or 44% of the total infections.

During this time, 333 cases were partially vaccinated and 279 were not vaccinated.

Q: Does this mean the vaccine is ineffective?

A: Professor Teo Yik Ying, dean of the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health at the National University of Singapore (NUS), said that as more people get vaccinated, there will be more people vaccinated among infected cases.

“Currently we have almost 75% of the population vaccinated with at least one dose, so the coronavirus is more likely to meet someone who is vaccinated than someone who is not,” he said. declared.

Friday noon, the KTV lounge cluster has 227 Covid-19 cases and the Jurong fishing port has 638.

Experts have noted that many of the people who visit KTV shows or work in the affected fishing port and wet markets tend to be in their 20s to 60s.

Prof Teo said: “These groups are very well vaccinated, with even up to 80% vaccinated. So this is where looking at this summarized data can be misleading.”

While studies have shown that people who have been vaccinated are less likely to be infected than those who have not been vaccinated, it is difficult to put a figure on that, experts say.

This is because the likelihood of a person contracting Covid-19 differs across the island, depending on where the cases occur, as well as a person’s activities.

More importantly, a vaccinated person who is infected is much less likely to suffer from serious side effects.

Q: Does the vaccine really help prevent the side effects of Covid-19?

A: Health Minister Ong Ye Kung spoke earlier this month about a Singapore study that found that the efficacy of mRNA vaccines against the Delta variant is 69%.

But for the Sinovac Covid-19 vaccine, there is insufficient data to show how effective it is against the Delta strain.

Professor Dale Fisher, senior infectious disease consultant at National University Hospital, told a webinar hosted by NUS’s Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine on Friday that those who are fully vaccinated are very unlikely to get sick. .

He noted that most Covid-19 cases aged 60 and over were mostly vaccinated.

“These people are the ones who are at higher risk and are said to be the cause of our intensive care units (intensive care units) being put on standby,” he said.

Professor Fisher noted that of the 415 hospitalized Covid-19 cases, only eight Covid-19 cases required oxygen support or were in critical condition in intensive care. None of them have been fully vaccinated.

Efforts to speed up vaccinations must continue as fewer people have needed oxygen or intensive care due to high vaccination rates in Singapore, he said.

He added: “We know it still doesn’t eliminate the disease, it just makes it milder.”

In the past 28 days, seven Covid-19 patients were in intensive care, needed oxygen supplementation or died, the Department of Health said on Thursday.

Among them, six were not vaccinated, while one had received a dose of the vaccine. None have been fully vaccinated.

84-year-old Singaporean who would have died on June 26 was not vaccinated.