Doctors in Singapore believe the latest COVID-19 wave in the country has peaked, even as some clinics are still dealing with higher than normal patient numbers, and doctors are watching for possible surges in the coming months.
Doctors see cases stabilizing, down about 20 percent from December, according to a Channel News Asia report Friday.
However, clinics are already planning for more manpower and medications in anticipation of another surge in the coming months.
Healthway Medical, for example, now sees an average of 50 to 60 patients coming in with respiratory infections every day at its 57 clinics, the report said. COVID-19 and flu cases make up the bulk of that.
This is approximately 10 percent higher than the regular patient load, but a slight decrease compared to the peak around Christmas.
The peak of all cases of upper respiratory tract infections has stabilized. The majority of people have already returned from travel, said CNA chief of primary care at Healthway Medical Group, Dr. John Cheng.
Most of our clinics had enough buffer for all acute and upper respiratory infections to accommodate a sudden increase in patients, he said.
There will certainly be an increase at the end of the year. And then during the holidays, during the holidays – with more and more people coming into contact with each other, more and more travelers coming in and out – we will expect to see some spikes during those periods,” he said.
OneCare Medical is also seeing cases stabilize across its 38 clinics. It said it is less likely that cases will rise significantly again in the short term.
We believe that the ARI (Acute Respiratory Infection) has already peaked, so we should see the numbers stabilize and probably slowly decline over the coming weeks, back to the usual base numbers, CNA quoted CEO of OneCare Medical Dr. Jimmy Chew. .
Of course, if the weather remains quite cold and there are still many circulating strains of ARI pathogens, we may still see the numbers persist,” he said.
With the Chinese New Year approaching (February 10), gatherings will still take place. And of course, travelers are still traveling, especially those who want to take advantage of the low season, Chew says.
There are probably still some infectious diseases going on. But hopefully, of course, we have already seen the peak of ARI cases so that we will see a downward trend in the coming weeks,” he said.
I think we have to monitor the situation closely. So in terms of medications, we tend to stock up more ahead of the expectation of this peak, said Dr. Daniel Soong, medical director of the Unihealth Clinic, quoted by CNA.
If we notice an increase in the number of cases and caseloads, we may be able to deploy more manpower in our clinic to reduce the waiting time for the patients, Soong said.
(Only the headline and image of this report may have been reworked by Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is automatically generated from a syndicated feed.)
First print: January 6, 2024 | 9:10 am IST