54 People Pass Away From Covid-19 In April, Death Toll In May Might Be Higher

Though Covid-19 is no longer a global health emergency, that doesn’t mean it can’t still be lethal.

Singaporeans might realise we’ve gone through yet another Covid-19 wave, with many people catching the disease around us.

Worse still, the number of deaths from Covid-19 jumped to 54 in April, the highest yet for this year.

All of the fatalities were aged 60 and above except one.

Covid-19 deaths jump by 41 in April

According to statistics from the Ministry of Health (MOH), a total of 54 people passed away from Covid-19.

While 53 of them were aged 60 and above, the remaining fatality was between 12 and 59 years old.

The figure is a huge jump of 41 deaths compared with March, when 13 people passed away from Covid-19.

It’s also the highest monthly number of Covid-19 deaths so far in 2023.

Putting that into perspective, 84 people in total have passed away from Covid-19 in the first four months of the year — and more than half of these deaths occurred in April.

20,767 cases reported last week

The increase in Covid-19 deaths comes as the number of infections continues to be high, with 20,767 cases reported in epi-week 20 (14 to 20 May).

This latest wave started sometime in March, when the number of weekly cases exceeded 10,000 for two straight weeks.

Near the last week of March, they doubled to a whopping 28,410.

They’ve remained consistently high since then, staying above 20,000 every week except for one.

Accordingly, average daily hospitalisations have also steadily increased.

More alarmingly, Intensive Care Unit (ICU) admissions shot up in the past week, possibly linked to the high number of deaths.

MOH warns of surge in cases

In a press release on 22 May, MOH warned of “a surge in Covid-19 cases in recent weeks&rdq...