Like my handsome colleague, GY, said, the Covid-19 situation in Singapore took a drastic turn within this month.
“In case you’ve forgotten, Singapore has only 106 confirmed cases on the first day of March.
Today’s the last day of March, and with the global trend of exponential growth in cases, we now have 926 cases as 47 cases were reported today.
It’s now so bad that even in-camp training, which everyone believes will never be cancelled since that’s never happened before, is suspended until 30 April 2020.”
And now, we’re all worried.
Will it lead to a complete lockdown? Does this mean I can no longer go to Enaq for prata? How about my weekly movie outing?!
Well, according to experts, this is an answer only Singaporeans can give.
S’pore Now Faces Threat of Covid-19 Infections Exploding Rampantly
Experts ST spoke to all agreed that Singapore is now facing the threat of Covid-19 spreading uncontrollably here.
Which is the exact opposite of what the government was hoping for, which is to flatten the curve.
Unfortunately, for the government, there is not a lot that they can do from this point onwards.
Previously, import cases took up a huge bulk of newly discovered Covid-19 cases on a daily basis and the government can impose stricter measures and travel restrictions to help curb the situation.
But now, local clusters are popping up and patients with no known links are getting discovered every day.
If you want to know the significance of cases with no known links, here’s an article that explains it in simple English.
It’s Up To S’poreans If The Covid-19 Threat Explodes Or Defuses
This is the conclusion reached by the experts, according to ST.
“Right now, it is really in the hands of ordinary citizens to act responsibly and break any community transmission in Singapore,” Professor Teo Yik Ying, Dean of the National University of Singapore’s Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health said.
In short, whether Singaporeans can follow the measures set by the government such as:
- Ensuring safe distancing measures
- Not visiting the elderly
- Allowing employees to work from home
- Employees really work from home and not go out to party
Will determine whether Singapore sinks or continue to be lauded as the gold standard of Covid-19 combat.
The Next Two Weeks Are ‘Crucial’
Associate Professor Hsu Li Yang, who leads Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health’s infectious diseases programme, said that the next two weeks are crucial.
If the numbers are held in check for the next two weeks, particularly “without a dramatic rise, especially in cases with unknown links”, Singapore will enter a “new state of stability”.
He indicated that the data has shown that Covid-19 has entered Singapore’s communities as import cases drop slightly while local transmission cases increased rapidly.
Over the past three days, imported cases increased by 5% while local cases spiked by 15%.
Be Worried
Okay, the experts actually said don’t worry but we all know Singaporeans’ pattern: if we’re not worried, we don’t do anything about it.
So be worried. Be very worried.
Singapore is desperately trying to increase the number of beds in Intensive Care Units (ICU) and our healthcare system still has bandwidth for more patients.
But it’s not enough to accommodate a huge spike in Covid-19 cases. If you want to know what happens to a country when ICU beds are not enough, you can read it here:
TL; DR: Definitely not something we want to happen in Singapore.
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By the way, when we say the Singapore authorities cannot do much, we don’t mean they can’t do anything at all.
You’ve got to admit that all the measures they came up with (at the current moment) still gives us a bit of freedom when it comes to our daily lives.
But you can be sure that if they have to, they’ll issue a lockdown order faster (and stricter) than Malaysia can say boleh. Just look at what they did with PMDs.
So let’s all do our part and play the waiting game with Covid-19 while waiting for the vaccine to be out, okay?
You can do your part as a responsible citizen through helping out in contact tracing by downloading the TraceTogether app.
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In the meantime, keep yourself updated by bookmarking MOH’s website here and registering for the Gov.sg’s WhatsApp service here.
