SINGAPORE (Reuters) – A committee of experts convened by the Singapore health ministry has recommended that all residents eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine should take sightings while available, although they said that the vaccine should remain a voluntary option.
The recommendation comes as Singapore’s success in controlling the virus raises the question of whether they should take the job. The city state has been reporting almost zero new local issues every day over the past few weeks.
The committee of experts, convened in October, recommended achieving such a high level of population coverage for the COVID-19 vaccine in order to reduce the overall proportion of the population susceptible to the disease and the likelihood of non-transmission chains. regulated, a statement released on Sunday said.
Singapore has approved the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, the first batch of which expired on 21 December.
It has signed advanced purchase agreements and made early payments to a number of vaccine candidates, including those being developed by Moderna and Sinovac. There are expected to be enough vaccines for every 5.7 million people by the third quarter of 2021.
The government has said the vaccines will be free, voluntary and initially given to health care workers and the elderly.
The country is expected to build more anti-virus loops from Monday, including allowing groups of eight to gather in public, up from level five, and raising capacity limits for large gatherings.
Reporting by Aradhana Aravindan in Singapore; Edited by Kenneth Maxwell