Singapore to ramp up COVID vaccination programme; increasing daily doses by 70 per cent

SINGAPORE: Singapore will accelerate its national COVID-19 vaccination programme from Saturday and administer up to 80,000 vaccine doses daily, a 70 per cent increase from the 47,000 daily doses currently, the health ministry said on Thursday.

The ramp up is due to the delivery of vaccine supplies being brought forward, The Straits Times newspaper reported. The health ministry expects to add another 500,000 new slots in the next few days for people making their first dose appointments from now till mid-July.

If supplies continue to arrive as planned, most of the population who are willing to take the vaccine will have received their first dose by the second half of July, health minister Ong Ye Kung was quoted as saying by the report. Singapore has administered over 5 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine as of Wednesday, Ong said. More than 3 million people, or about 53 per cent of the population, have received their first dose.

Of these, two million, or 36 per cent of the population, have received their second dose and are fully vaccinated, the Channel News Asia reported.