COVID-19 Cases in Hospitals and Nursing Homes

NOTICE PAPER NO. 1494

NOTICE OF QUESTION FOR ORAL ANSWER

FOR THE SITTING OF PARLIAMENT ON 7 NOVEMBER 2022

Name and Constituency of Member of Parliament

Ms. Sylvia Lim

MP for Aljunied GRC

Question No. 3734

To ask the Minister for Health (a) for the past six months, how many patients or residents contracted COVID-19 infections from within residential healthcare facilities such as hospitals and nursing homes; and (b) whether the Ministry is satisfied with the effectiveness of the current COVID-19 measures implemented at these facilities.

Answer

1.     From 1 April 2022 to 30 September 2022, there were around 330 reported cases from COVID-19 clusters in hospitals. Over the same period, around 3,000 COVID-19 cases were reported by the nursing homes. These constitute a small proportion – less than 1% – of total reported community cases. As we move towards living with COVID-19, we no longer adopt a zero-COVID posture in hospitals and nursing homes, where all patients or nursing home residents need to be tested before admission and where infected patients are isolated in hospital COVID wards.

2.     Notwithstanding these measures, we continue to take necessary precautions to protect patients and residents, and are ready to step up the COVID-19 measures, such as visitor restrictions, when necessary. Vaccination is our primary defence. It cannot completely stop infections but is very effective in preventing severe illness from COVID-19. We have provided COVID-19 vaccinations to over 90% of eligible nursing home residents. With these measures, we have kept Singapore’s overall case fatality rate at about 0.1%, well below the global average of around 1%.