After initiating the loc-
Sorry, I mean CB enhanced measures, you might be wondering how many people are actually still required to go out.
Well, the answer’s in the title (350K lah), which still seems like a sizeable number.
We still got a long way to go before we start to initiate the CCB and KNNBCCB phase.
But let’s break down what this number means.
Proportion of Workforce Commuting to Work Reduced From 20% to 15%
According to National Development Minister Lawrence Wong, many local infections after 7 April involved those working in essential services or the families of those doing so.
So it makes a lot of sense to limit this further, which he says would reduce the workforce commuting to work from 20% to 15%.
Reader Bao: Wait a min, those are not the figures you gave in the title.
The 350K is actually a calculation that The Straits Times did based on official figures.
The local workforce in December last year is 2.36 million, so 15% is 353,000 workers. If foreigners are included in the 15%, then this rises to 567,000. The total workforce last December is 3.78 million.
Which means that even after all these measures, there are still potentially 567,000 people required to go to work.
Some Essential Services Also Moved To Work From Home
In The Straits Times article, Eunice Lim, 57, an accountant working in healthcare, explains that she started working from home since the CB enhanced measures. Different groups of hospital employees will alternate between home and offices.
She continues, “But there will be some days when I will have to go back to the office, as doctors and nurses will still need administrators like us around for urgent matters.”
And in a Goody Feed article, everyone’s working from home even before CB so our boss is basically paying the office rent for nothing.
The Number of COVID-19 Cases Is Still Too Darn High
The point of all these, obviously, isn’t to promote introversion as a virtue. It’s to bring the number of COVID-19 cases to 0.
And here’s the problem: the number of unlinked cases isn’t 0. Which means that there are undetected cases in the community spreading COVID-19 that nobody knows about.
Possibly not even the carrier themselves.
And considering how easily the virus spreads, you can see why 350K to 567K workers who have to go to work because their work is necessary can be a problem.
So stay home, lest the KNNBCCB phase is introduced and we have to do this even longer. If we’re still doing this in July, I might have to start counting the number of tiles in my house.
