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Number of home-vaccination teams triples, reducing waiting times for homebound seniors

2021-08-19 00:00:00.0 海峡时报-新加坡原网页

SINGAPORE - Waiting times for homebound seniors to receive their jabs are likely to fall significantly, now that the number of home vaccination teams has tripled from 11 teams to 33, said Health Minister Ong Ye Kung on Thursday (Aug 19).

On Aug 6, he put up a Facebook post to call for doctors and nurses to help vaccinate seniors who are homebound, given that the demand for such a service was very high, and the resulting waiting time was around eight weeks.

He had also said that Singapore had vaccinated around 1,200 homebound seniors so far, and that there was a need to do more.

Since then, about 200 doctors and nurses have signed up with the SG Healthcare Corps, said Mr Ong, who was speaking at a press conference held by the multi-ministry task force tackling Covid-19.

"So as a result, we used to have 11 home vaccination teams, now we can increase it to 33," he added.

Mr Ong also thanked those who had responded to his call and stepped forward to volunteer their services.

With the nation's high vaccination rate, the vaccine operations will increasingly move "to a retail mode", he said, shifting the focus to mobile and home vaccination teams.

He also said that the overall vaccination numbers have fallen from a peak of 80,000 a day to around 20,000 a day currently.

Therefore, the vaccination centres will be progressively consolidated, so that residents can gradually get their community club facilities back.

There are currently 37 vaccination centres islandwide - 26 of these administer the Pfizer vaccine, while 11 administer the Moderna vaccine.

"But we still need to keep a good number of vaccination centres operating for three purposes: One, to vaccinate the rest of the population (who) have not been vaccinated; two, after we have properly studied the safety and efficacy aspects of the vaccination of children below 12, we should start (vaccinating them) some time in early 2022; and the third is to administer boosters."

Booster shots of the Covid-19 vaccine are being studied, while a third dose is being considered for those who have severely compromised immune systems - such as transplant patients and those on cancer treatment - as they cannot produce as much antibodies to fight the virus even after two doses.