Those aged 60 and above account for 78 of 83 Covid-19 deaths in Singapore this year

Fatalities much lower than in 2023, but MOH urges seniors to get booster shots

- Salma Khalik

Seniors aged 60 years and older, and those who are medically vulnerable, should get a booster vaccination against Covid-19 to protect themselves against serious illness and death.

This call from the Ministry of Health (MOH) comes in the light of the 83 people who have died from the infectious disease in 2024.

Of them, 78 were aged 60 and above, four were aged 50 to 59, and one was 16 years or younger.

MOH said all four adults in their 50s who died had other medical problems, and three had not received a booster shot within the past year.

The vaccination status of the fourth adult, a foreigner visiting Singapore, is not known.

The young person who died had other medical problems and had "no history of Covid-19 vaccination".

The 83 deaths linked to Covid-19 so far in 2024 are much lower than the 317 deaths in 2023 and the 860 in 2022.

An MOH spokesman said that in general, the Covid-19 situation here has been stable, in spite of the year-end travel season.

The peak of around 26,000 cases a week occurred in May, when there was a wave of cases caused by the KP.1/2 variant.