Senior Vaccination Rates Doubling Shows Outreach Efforts Are Bearing Fruit
Our return to Phase 2 Heightened Alert (P2HA) doesn’t just allow us to curb transmissions in the community. It also allows us to ‘buy time’ while more seniors get their vaccination jabs.
On Friday (23 Jul) evening, Health Minister Ong Ye Kung shared that the vaccination rate among seniors has doubled over recent days.
With such promising figures, he hopes the rates can hit 80% soon.
Vaccination rate among seniors doubles over the past 3 days
In a Facebook post on Friday (24 Jul), Mr Ong provided positive news about our seniors’ vaccination rates.
After extensive outreach programmes by the authorities, more elderly folk are now coming forward to get their jabs.
Illustrating through a graph, Mr Ong shared that the number of seniors aged 70 and above getting their first dose has roughly doubled over the past 3 days in the previous week.
On Thursday (22 Jul), 1,157 seniors stepped forward to get their first jabs.
Mr Ong is understandably heartened by the numbers, which prove their outreach efforts are bearing fruit.
Should these figures continue over the coming days or weeks, Mr Ong is hopeful that seniors’ vaccination rates can surge past 80%.
Seniors have the lowest vaccination rate for 1st vaccine dose
According to MOH’s daily update on Friday (23 Jul), 4,201,110 Singapore residents have already received their first dose of the vaccine.
However, only about 75% of seniors aged 70 and above have received their first jab — the lowest rate among all age groups.
Given the higher likelihood for seniors to develop severe illnesses due to Covid-19, this is certainly an area of concern.
The situation for fully vaccinated folks looks more promising, with slightly more than 70% of seniors having received both jabs — the 3rd best-performing age group.
But this could also be skewed by the fact that younger residents only had access to the vaccines at a much later date, which may correspond to a lower vaccination rate.
Heartening to see more seniors getting vaccinated
It’s heartening that more seniors are coming forward to get their vaccination jabs.
This is important as it protects them from developing severe illness if they contract Covid-19.
Hopefully, the higher vaccination rates will give the authorities more confidence to ease measures once the situation comes under control.
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Featured image adapted from Ministry of Health on Facebook.
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