The outbreak of the Delta variant threatens the Singapore model ‘living with Covid’

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According to the country’s Ministry of Health, the number of new Covid-19 infections in Singapore doubled last week, reaching more than 1,200 cases the week ending 5 September.

To date, Singapore has recorded a total of 68,901 Covid-19 infections and 55 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.

On Monday, Lawrence Wong, head of Singapore’s Covid-19 working group, said it was not just the total number of daily cases that concerned the Singapore government, but also “the speed of the virus spreading”.

“We know from the experience of other countries that when the cases increase so abruptly there will be many more cases of ICU and many more people who will succumb to the virus,” he said.

Singapore pursued an aggressive “Covid Zero” policy during the pandemic, imposing strict restrictions such as closing restaurants, closing borders and enforcing social distancing.

But in June, the government announced that it planned to move forward with life with the Covid strategy: try to control outbreaks with vaccines and control hospitalizations instead of restricting the lives of citizens.

“The bad news is that the Covid-19 may never go away. The good news is that it is possible to live with it normally in the midst of us,” Singapore’s top Covid-19 officials wrote in an opinion in June.
In May, Singapore reduced the number of people who could socialize together from five to two.

New restrictions

Singapore has one of the highest vaccination rates against Covid-19 in the world, with over 80% of the population fully vaccinated.
Throughout August, Singapore began to relax some of its Covid-19 restrictions, allowing fully vaccinated people to dine in restaurants and gather in groups of five, more than two.

But the new outbreak has halted any further reopening, Singapore’s head of Covid task, Wong, said on Monday.

Wong said Singapore will try to contain the new outbreak through more aggressive contact tracking and through “ring closure” cases and clusters.

Mandatory tests for high-risk workers it will also occur more frequently: once a week instead of every two weeks. And the list of workers subject to mandatory testing will be expanded to include retail, delivery and public transportation staff.

Singapore has also banned all meetings in the workplace from Wednesday and Wong encouraged citizens to avoid unnecessary social events as they try to contain the outbreak.

He said it was a reflection of Singapore’s new policy and high vaccination rates that the country was able to maintain a level of openness during the new outbreak.

“But if, despite our efforts, we find that the number of serious cases requiring oxygen in ICU care increases sharply, we may have no case but to tighten our general stance, so we should not rule out ho, ”he said.

A warning for other countries

The Singapore outbreak occurs when other countries in the region, which previously claimed zero infections, are moving towards a similar life with the Covid model.

Millions of residents in the Australian states of New South Wales and Victoria have been living in captivity for months as local authorities tried to contain Delta outbreaks. They have since admitted that it will not be possible.

Australia beat the world by closing Covid. He is now very divided on how to reopen
The Australian government announced in August that once 70% of people over the age of 16 receive two doses of vaccine, there will be a steady reduction in restrictions. Only 38.4% of the Australian population was fully vaccinated as of Monday.

But some Australian state leaders have warned against the premature opening of state borders, questioning why they would voluntarily expose their populations to the virus.

Currently, Western Australia and Queensland have zero Covid-19 cases in the community.

“We have some of the freest, most open and exciting communities in the world and we want to keep it that way while we vaccinate our people,” Western Australian Prime Minister Mark McGowan said on 30 August.

“The idea that we would prematurely decide to deliberately import the virus … is complete madness,” he added.

Some epidemiologists say that if restrictions are reduced before vaccination rates in vulnerable communities are high enough, the results could be catastrophic.

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