Singapore COVID-19 rules to remain unchanged as COVID-19 daily cases remain high

Changes to streamline Singapore’s COVID-19 rules will be pushed back further as the number of COVID-19 daily cases remain high, said the Ministry of Health (MOH) in a statement on Friday (Mar 4). 

MOH said that the number of hospitalised cases remains high and healthcare workers are still under significant pressure. 

The health ministry added: ”Although the measures are largely streamlining in nature and not expected to significantly increase transmission risk or affect our epidemic situation, we will hold back the streamlining of measures for a while more, in solidarity with our healthcare workers.”

MOH said that they “hope that the situation will soon enable the streamlining of measures to take effect and pave the way for further easing of measures thereafter,” adding the Government is monitoring the situation closely.

The Multi-Ministry Task Force for COVID-19 (MTF) first announced the simplified measures, which allows households to host five people at any one time and workplace social gatherings, on Feb 16. 

However, on Feb 24, a day before the measures were due to be implemented, the MTF said it would consolidate the changes to streamline Safe Management Measures (SMM) and implement them at a later date because daily COVID-19 cases rose to above 20,000. 

Since then, the number of COVID-19 cases have dipped below the 20,000 mark. On Friday (Mar 4), 17,564 COVID-19 cases were reported. This included 17,406 local cases. 

The weekly infection growth rate has dipped to 0.97. A number below 1.00 indicates that the number of cases in the week is on the decline. 

Among the new cases, 15,139 were detected through Antigen Rapid Tests (ART) and have mild symptoms and low risk. This included 15,037 local cases. 

There were 2,425 cases detected through Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) tests, including 2,369 local cases. 

Of the cases on Friday, 1,678 patients were hospitalised, including 211 cases that required oxygen supplementation. There were 45 cases warded in Intensive Care Units. 

In total, 23,545 cases were discharged from the hospital between Thursday and Friday.

Eighteen deaths related to COVID-19 were reported on Friday, taking the national death toll to 1,067. It was the highest number of COVID-19 deaths reported in a day since Nov 16, 2021 when 18 deaths were also reported.

The COVID-19 cases on Friday include 7,065 infections between 12 and 39 years old.