SINGAPORE — Singapore reported 335 new Covid-19 cases and one fatality as of noon on Wednesday.

This takes the country’s death toll from coronavirus complications to 818 deaths.

Wednesday’s case count is up from the 280 infections reported on Tuesday.

Among the new cases, 259 are locally transmitted, comprising 245 in the community and 14 in migrant workers’ dormitories, according to the latest infection statistics on the Ministry of Health’s (MOH) website.

There are also 76 imported cases, the highest number of new imported infections reported in Singapore since the start of the pandemic.

The previous high was 67 imported cases on Dec 19.

MOH did not provide further details on the latest imported cases on its website.

The weekly infection growth rate is 0.54, down from Tuesday’s 0.56. This refers to the ratio of community cases for the past week over the week before.

The growth rate has remained below 1 since Nov 13. A figure below 1 means that the number of new weekly Covid-19 cases is falling.

As of Wednesday, Singapore has recorded 276,720 Covid-19 cases since the start of the pandemic.

The intensive care unit (ICU) utilisation rate is at 52.7 per cent, down from the 53.3 per cent reported on Tuesday.

There are 428 patients in hospital, with 53 requiring oxygen supplementation.

In the ICU, six patients require close monitoring while 23 patients are critically ill.

As of Tuesday, 96 per cent of Singapore’s eligible population — those aged 12 and above — have completed their full vaccination regimen.

About 35 per cent of the total population have received their vaccine booster shots.

From Wednesday, parents of children aged nine to 11 studying in Ministry of Education schools will receive SMSes inviting them to book vaccination appointments for their children starting from Dec 27.

This comes after Singapore approved the Pfizer-BioNTech/Comirnaty vaccine for use in children aged five to 11.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK