Singapore says 30% COVID-19 deaths in 2021 fully vaccinated

SINGAPORE: Fully vaccinated individuals accounted for 30 per cent of Singapore’s total Covid-19 related deaths last year, Health Minister Ong Ye Kung said in Parliament on Monday.

The minister said that Singapore last year registered 802 deaths due to the coronavirus, out of which 247 were fully vaccinated people.

Most of the vaccinated individuals, who died from COVID-19 related complications, had received non-mRNA vaccines, according to crude incidence rates of deaths provided by Ong. Ong provided the crude incidence rates based on type of vaccination: 11 deaths per 100,000 for those vaccinated with Sinovac, 7.8 per 100,000 for Sinopharm, 6.2 per 100,000 for Pfizer-BioNTech and 1 per 100,000 for Moderna.

“Be mindful, we are calculating this based on quite a small sample of 247 deaths… These rates are only indicative since they do not account for other factors which can affect mortality such as the age and timing of vaccination,” Channel News Asia quoted Ong as saying in the House.

The remaining 555 people who died from COVID-19 last year were not fully vaccinated.

Although the unvaccinated represents a “small proportion” of Singapore’s population, those deaths accounted for 70 per cent of the total COVID-19 deaths last year, Ong said.

The Ministry of Health (MOH) has managed to vaccinate “well over 90 per cent” of every eligible age group over the past months, he said.

Singapore’s booster programme is “gathering pace”, with about 46 per cent of the population having received their boosters (third injection), said Ong. – THE HINDUSTAN TIMES