SINGAPORE, 29 Mar (CNA)- Singapore reported 8,164 new COVID-19 cases as of noon on Tuesday (Mar 29), comprising 8,009 local infections and 155 imported ones.

This is the ninth consecutive Tuesday that case numbers have gone up from the day before. Health Minister Ong Ye Kung had previously referred to such a pattern, writing on Facebook in October 2021 that numbers would "always spike after the weekends".

There were four fatalities, taking the death toll from coronavirus complications to 1,258.

There are 728 patients in hospital, according to the latest infection statistics on the Ministry of Health's (MOH) website. A total of 83 patients require oxygen supplementation.

Twenty-five patients are in the intensive care unit.

Most of Singapore's new COVID-19 infections are Protocol 2 cases, which are those who are well or assessed to have a mild condition.

Among the new cases reported on Tuesday, 7,282 are classified under Protocol 2, comprising 7,153 local cases and 129 imported infections.

Another 882 cases were confirmed via polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, with 26 of them being imported infections.

The week on week infection ratio is 0.69, lower than the 0.73 on Monday. A number below 1 indicates that the number of new weekly COVID-19 cases is falling.

Singapore has recorded 1,085,094 COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic.