Covid-19 cases are reported to rise in the ASEAN region after having been sloping for several months. Additional cases continue to occur on a scale of thousands. Singapore is known to have the highest number of additional cases. Then, what about other countries?
From a row of ASEAN countries, the highest additional cases were reported by Singapore. In the past week (June 29-23), Singapore reported 50,611 cases, up 61.9% compared to the previous week which was recorded at 31,271.
Yesterday, Singapore reported an additional 9,392 cases. This number is lower than that recorded the day before, Tuesday (28/6/2022).
On that date, Singapore reported 11,504 cases, which is the highest record since 22 March or more than three months.
In the past week, Vietnam reported the number of cases as many as 6,722, an increase of 41.3% compared to the previous week. Covid-19 cases in the Philippines jumped 44.5% in the week to 5,307.
The increase in Covid cases in Malaysia reached 11.9% in the past week to 16,137. Meanwhile, cases in Indonesia jumped 37.5% to 13,294 compared to the previous week. Thailand reported 15,291 cases in the past week, up 7.9% compared to the previous week.
Singapore is also the ASEAN country with the highest average daily additional cases in the last seven days. The average additional daily Covid cases in Singapore in the past week reached 7,230.
This number is much higher than Malaysia (2,305 cases), Thailand (2,184), Indonesia (1,899), Vietnam (960), and the Philippines (758).
The surge in Covid-19 cases in ASEAN, especially Singapore, was triggered by the entry of the BA.4, BA.5 sub-variant. Singapore’s Ministry of Health said 40% of the Covid-19 cases in the past week were caused by the BA.4, BA.5 subvariance.
Despite the increase in cases, Singapore will not tighten drastically because the BA.4, and BA.5 sub-variant do not cause severe symptoms so the number of deaths does not increase. Singapore only reported six deaths in a week.
“We see the addition of this case is still under control. Especially with the high vaccination coverage. Our hospital has been confirmed to be ready if there is a large spike in cases,” wrote the Ministry of Health of Singapore, as quoted by Channel News Asia.
The number of booster vaccine recipients in Singapore has reached 78% of the population, as of Tuesday. This number is much higher than its neighboring countries. Booster vaccination in Malaysia has only reached 49.4% while Indonesia only has 24.2%.
Regarding this matter, Mohammad Syahril as Spokesperson for the Ministry of Health appealed to the public not to panic in facing this condition. According to him, the increase in cases that occurred in the last few weeks was influenced by the emergence of new variants of Omicron BA.4 and BA.5.
“The rise and fall of this case are because we are still in the COVID-19 pandemic phase,” said Syahril in an online discussion held by the Merdeka Barat 9 Forum, Thursday (16/6/22).
However, he is optimistic that the government will be able to control conditions so that there will not be a significant spike. So that it doesn’t happen like the spike in cases of omicron and delta variants a few months back.
He added that the average positive number of the spike in cases of this new variant of Covid-19 in Indonesia was still below the WHO standard. Meanwhile, the WHO standard is 5 percent.
