Covid infections down in Singapore but experts call for precaution
The seven-day moving average of the infection was 7,870 on December 12 and decreased slightly to 7,730 on December 17, The Straits Times newspaper reported.
Experts have urged people to be socially responsible and mask up in crowded, enclosed places, even if they feel well, since the transmission of the virus occurs a day or two before symptoms appear.
«It'll be a bell curve confounded by Christmas parties,» Professor Dale Fisher, a senior infectious diseases consultant at the National University Hospital (NUH), said.
«You don't know if it's peaked until after it's peaked,» he was quoted as saying by the newspaper on Tuesday.
While the numbers remain high, experts say it is not a cause for concern, even though serious illness and deaths tend to lag infection figures.
In the week of December 3, a total of 9,763 people were hospitalised, and 23 were admitted to intensive care units (ICU).
The health ministry is providing daily updates of the COVID-19 infection figures from December 19 «to provide the latest information on the situation during this period of surge in cases».
Professor Paul Tambyah of the NUH, president of the International Society for Infectious Diseases, said people do not need to worry about rising COVID-19 infections.
Instead, they should «just be sensible about taking precautions about their health, not go to work or school if they are unwell and seek medical attention instead,» Tambyah said.
«We should be concerned because a large number of infections will impact healthcare services and also result in higher numbers of serious illnesses and deaths,» the report quoted Professor Hsu Li Yang, an infectious diseases specialist at
