Covid-19 rules: People medically ineligible for vaccines to get ‘special concession’ when dining out, among others

SINGAPORE — People certified to be medically ineligible for both vaccines under the national vaccination programme will soon be exempted from vaccine-related infection controls.

Announcing this on Saturday (Oct 23), the national Covid-19 task force referred to updated data to show the escalated risk of severe illness or death for those unvaccinated compared to those who are fully vaccinated.

This “special concession” will apply to the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna messenger ribonucleic acid vaccines, as well as the Sinovac-CoronaVac vaccine that will be included in the national vaccination programme, the Ministry of Health (MOH) said in a statement.

“More details on the medical criteria and timeline for the start of this concession will be issued by MOH later,” it wrote.

These vaccine-related controls include being restricted from dining in or entering malls.

Associate Professor Kenneth Mak, director of medical services at MOH, said that the overall risk of unvaccinated Covid-19 patients who need oxygen support, intensive care or died is 8.1 per cent of all unvaccinated people. 

For vaccinated patients, that risk drops to 1.4 per cent.

“This means there's a relative risk of 5.8 times more for an unvaccinated person to get a severe infection compared to vaccinated people,” Assoc Prof Mak said at a press conference by the task force on Saturday.

Compared to a vaccinated case, an unvaccinated case has a 10.4 times higher relative risk of being placed in the intensive care unit or dying. 

The relative risk of dying from Covid-19 is also 11.7 times higher for an unvaccinated case.

Unvaccinated seniors also have a higher risk of severe infection compared to vaccinated seniors, Assoc Prof Mak said.

For people above the age of 80, the risk of severe infection for an unvaccinated patient was 21.7 per cent compared to 3 per cent for a vaccinated patient, translating to a 7.2 times higher relative risk.

The risk of needing oxygen to help them breathe was four times higher for unvaccinated seniors — 52.7 per cent compared to 13 per cent for seniors who were vaccinated. 

Assoc Prof Mak added that even for infected patients aged between 60 and 69, being unvaccinated carries a 13 times higher risk of developing a severe infection — 27.8 per cent compared to 2.1 per cent for those vaccinated.

He noted that although there might be more vaccinated patients who have a severe infection, it is because the number of people who are vaccinated in Singapore are much greater than those who are not vaccinated.

“Please don't be complacent and assume that your younger age sufficiently protects you from not needing vaccination. It doesn't — particularly if you have chronic medical conditions like diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, chronic lung conditions, cancer, or if you're immunocompromised or even if you’re obese,” Assoc Prof Mak said.

“Others have thought that their beloved seniors were protected by staying at home and not needing vaccinations. The facts show otherwise.

CLARIFICATION: An earlier version of this article said that compared to a vaccinated person, an unvaccinated person has a 10.4 per cent higher relative risk of being placed in the intensive care unit or dying, and an 11.7 per cent higher relative risk of dying. The Ministry of Health has clarified that this should be 10.4 times and 11.7 times higher.