S'pore to begin vaccinations on Dec. 30, priority for those at high risk & frontline workers

In batches.

Nyi Nyi Thet | December 27, 2020, 06:43 PM

Singapore will begin to administer vaccinations against Covid-19 on December 30.

The government has accepted in full the recommendations of the Expert Committee on Covid-19 Vaccination on the overall Covid-19 vaccination strategy for Singapore, and will begin vaccinating healthcare workers progressively from December 30, 2020.

Covid-19 vaccine stocks are expected to arrive in Singapore in batches over several months.

Vaccination will therefore take place in a progressive manner, with priority given to the following groups, as recommended by the Expert Committee:

  1. Persons at high risk of being infected by Covid-19, including healthcare workers and workers at the frontline of the Covid-19 response.
  2. Persons who are most vulnerable to severe disease and complications if they fall ill with COVID-19, including the elderly and persons with medical comorbidities.

Singapore will begin the vaccination exercise with healthcare workers at the National Centre for Infectious Diseases on December 30, 2020, and subsequently roll out to more healthcare institutions in the subsequent weeks.

Staff at acute hospitals, community hospitals, polyclinics, and private healthcare providers will be vaccinated within their premises.

Vaccination of the elderly, starting with those aged 70 years and above, will begin from February 2021. Thereafter, other Singaporeans and long-term residents who are medically eligible for vaccination will be vaccinated.

More details will be shared in due course, said the Ministry of Health (MOH).

All who are eligible are encouraged to get vaccinated

Covid-19 vaccination will be voluntary, but MOH strongly encourages everyone who is medically eligible for vaccination to get vaccinated when the vaccine is offered.

According to MOH, while the current number of cases in the community remains low, the risk for further importation of Covid-19 and community spread will increase as Singapore moves into Phase Three and given the global Covid-19 situation.

Vaccination is especially important in the face of reports surfacing globally about more transmissible strains, MOH said, stressing that vaccination is not a silver bullet that can end the pandemic immediately, but is a key enabler to getting Singapore back to a safer state of affairs.

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