Booster shots of Covid vaccine will be key part of Singapore's strategy to fight Omicron: PM Lee

Singapore, Dec 13 (PTI) Booster shots of Covid vaccine will be a key part of Singapore's strategy to combat the impact of Omicron, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said on Monday, exuding confidence that the city-state can cope with the new variant of the coronavirus even though the country is "not yet out of the woods".

Singapore reported its first local Omicron case last Thursday -- a front-line worker at Changi Airport who was infected despite already receiving a booster Covid-19 vaccine shot.

Singapore is starting to see "encouraging signs" in its COVID-19 journey. "The surge in cases over the last three months is subsiding. We have protected our healthcare system and kept fatalities low," Lee said.

"Now, we are preparing for the impact of the Omicron variant. Booster shots of the vaccine will be a key part of our strategy," he said at an event where he launched a 130-million Singaporan dollar Community Development Councils voucher scheme, the Channel News Asia reported.

A total of 1.3 million Singaporean households will each receive 100 Singaporan dollars in digital vouchers that can be used at participating hawkers and heartland shops.

Noting that "we are not yet out of the woods", Lee said, "but we are confident that we can cope with Omicron, because with vaccinations and boosters, we are in a much stronger position today to deal with COVID-19." On Friday last, the health ministry announced that vaccination for children aged five to 11 years using pediatric doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech/Comirnaty Covid-19 vaccine would begin before the end of the year.

It also announced that from Tuesday, the nationwide vaccination booster programme would be extended to individuals aged 18 to 29.

As on Friday last, 30 per cent of the total population have received their booster shots.

The number of Covid-19 cases reported by the Ministry of Health (MOH) daily has been on the decline, The Straits Times reported.

Since the middle of last month, the number of new cases has fallen from around 2,000 or 3,000 a day to fewer than 1,000, it said.

According to Johns Hopkins data, Singapore has so far recorded 273,362 confirmed Covid cases and 794 deaths due to the disease.