Brunei’s epidemic curve has seen a trending decline in the daily number of COVID-19 cases with effective reproduction number (Rt) dropping from 0.95 a week ago to 0.66 on Friday, announced Minister at the Prime Minister’s Office and Second Minister of Finance and Economy on behalf of Minister of Health at a press conference.
Yang Berhormat Dato Seri Setia Dr Hj Mohd Amin Liew said that in the third wave, a total of 108 cases were hospitalised and categorised in Categories 4 or 5 of which 60 were due to COVID-19 infection.
“So far, no cases require the help of an ECMO machine in this third wave. Meanwhile, the other 48 cases in Categories 4 or 5 were those who were hospitalised due to other health problems and coincidentally to be infected with COVID-19,” he said.
According to the minister, the graph suggests that the number of cases in Categories 4 and 5 remains at a low level even though the number of daily cases during this third wave was much higher than the number of cases during the previous second wave.
“With only 0.05% of all cases in this third wave categorized in Categories 4 and 5, this means that 99.95% of the cases only have mild or moderate signs of infection or symptoms,” he said.
The minister also revealed the latest health ministry data highlighting the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines at preventing serious illness in adults.
The data showed that for every 10,000 people who receive three doses of COVID-19 vaccine, 5.7 people will be categorized in Categories 4 or 5.
Moreover, adults with two doses of vaccine, 13.7 out of 10,000 people will be categorized in Categories 4 or 5.
“Whereas, for every 10,000 people who receive a single dose of vaccine, 36.6 people will be categorized in Categories 4 or 5,” added the minister.
Meanwhile, crude severity risk was much higher for the unvaccinated adults.
“For every 10,000 people who do not get the COVID-19 vaccine, 72.5 people will be categorized in Categories 4 or 5,” shared the minister.
The latest data also shows that unvaccinated adults are 13 times more at risk compared to adults with three doses.
THE BRUNEIAN | BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN
