SINGAPORE: Singapore reported five new COVID-19 infections as of noon on Wednesday (Nov 18).
All of the cases were imported and were placed on stay-home notice or isolated upon arrival in Singapore, said the Ministry of Health (MOH) in the preliminary daily update.
AdvertisementAdvertisementNo locally transmitted cases were reported for the eighth consecutive day.
The new infections bring the country's tally of COVID-19 cases to 58,135.
Details of the new cases will be released on Wednesday night, said the ministry.
VACCINES UPDATES
AdvertisementAdvertisementPfizer is "very close" to applying for an emergency use approval for its COVID-19 vaccine after collecting safety data to submit to US regulators, the company's CEO reportedly said on Tuesday.
The pharmaceutical giant announced last week that a late-stage clinical trial showed the vaccine was more than 90 per cent effective after the second dose.
[h=3]READ: Vaccine will not be enough to stop COVID-19 pandemic - WHO chief[/h][h=3]Explainer: Where are we in the COVID-19 vaccine race?[/h] AdvertisementOn Monday, Moderna and the US National Institutes for Health announced similar preliminary results from their own trial, finding their vaccine was almost 95 per cent effective.
Sinovac Biotech's vaccine CoronaVac triggered a quick immune response but the level of antibodies produced was lower than in people who had recovered from the disease, preliminary trial results showed on Wednesday.
While the early to mid-stage trials were not designed to assess the efficacy of CoronaVac, researchers said it could provide sufficient protection, based on their experience with other vaccines and data from preclinical studies with macaques.
[h=3]READ: Shot in the dark: Early COVID-19 vaccine efficacy explained[/h]World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has hailed "encouraging" news about COVID-19 vaccines. However, he expressed concern about surging cases in many countries and insisted that complacency was not an option.
[h=3]BOOKMARK THIS: Our comprehensive coverage of the coronavirus outbreak and its developments[/h]Download our app or subscribe to our Telegram channel for the latest updates on the coronavirus outbreak: https://cna.asia/telegram
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