Clusters will continue to be reported on but the numbers of unlinked and linked cases will be omitted in MOH's new press release format

The Ministry of Health (MOH) has announced that it will stop reporting the number of linked and unlinked Covid-19 cases in its daily press releases as it shifts its focus to reflect where we currently are as we fight against Covid-19.

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“We will ... no longer provide information on the number of linked/unlinked cases as this is no longer as relevant as before, given our current strategy of living with Covid-19,” said MOH in a statement on September 8.

“Today, we are one of most highly vaccinated countries in the world, with 81 per cent of our population having fully completed their vaccinations,” MOH continued. “With a high vaccination rate, we have adjusted our measures to transit to a Covid-19 resilient nation.”

MOH added that it will also closely monitor the number of cases that are being hospitalised as well as those that have to be moved to the intensive care unit to ensure that “hospital capacity is not overwhelmed”.

“We are also providing more information on large emerging clusters so that the public can avoid certain places, or regulate their own activities,” it said. 

The ministry also added that it will be reducing its daily Covid-19 updates from twice daily to once a day. 

“[We] are not chasing down every single case, which means unlinked numbers are also not as relevant as before,” said Health Minister Ong Ye Kung during a press conference by the Covid-19 multi-ministerial task force this week. 

This revamp of our press release strategy comes shortly after MOH announced in June that it will no longer be releasing information such as the ages, occupations and the places Covid-19 patients visited.

For now, the Covid-19 multi-ministerial task force has announced that all social gatherings should be limited to one a day and that social gatherings at workplaces have to be cancelled in an attempt to buy Singapore more time to get more people vaccinated and to slow down the rate of transmission as Singapore sees our local Covid-19 cases increasing recently. 

See also: Covid-19 Singapore: What to Know About Health Risk Alerts, Warnings and Quarantine Orders