463 New Covid-19 Cases Reported Today (12 Jun); 18 Cases In The Community

It’s 12 June, 10 days after Phase One started.

Previously experts have said that 10 to 14 days is when we’ll see if community transmission can be kept under control.

Singapore today reports 463 new Covid-19 cases, including 18 cases in the community.

Eight are Singaporeans/PRs while the remaining 10 are work pass holders.

Foreign workers residing in dormitories make up the rest of the numbers.

Of the 18 community cases, five are close contacts of earlier confirmed cases and have already been placed on quarantine.

Another 5 cases were detected from the Ministry of Health’s (MOH) surveillance and screening of workers in essential services and people working at dormitories.

Epidemiological investigations are ongoing for the remaining 8 cases.

Looking at the numbers, you might be worried that Singapore will have to go back to square one (read: CB).

That’s not what the experts think, though.

Experts Say S’pore Looks Ready to Move to Phase 2, Which Means Bubble Tea is Coming

Experts that ST spoke to all seem to think that Singapore is in a good place to enter Phase 2.

For one, the number of community cases has not spiked even though it’s time to see Covid-19 cases that were infected after CB surfacing.

10 to 14 days is the optimal time to see whether community transmission has increased drastically.

That’s because there’s enough time for two transmission cycles where a person to infect another, who would then go on to infect one more person.

Seeing as there’s no spike, things are “so far so good”.

As for the increase in community cases, it’s because Singapore has ramped up its testing capability (from 2,000 a day to 13,000 a day, working towards 40,000 tests a day).

With the capability to do more tests, Singapore is moving towards active testing (testing those who don’t show symptoms) can catch the “hidden reservoir of Covid-19 cases” in the community.

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Other Factors 

Besides the number of cases, the experts are also looking at three other factors:

• a healthy healthcare capacity
• how cases are being picked up
• and how long cases are picked up after showing symptoms (it has decreased from 7 to 8 days to 4 to 5 days)

If cases turn up at the clinics with no idea of where they got it from, it’s bad.

But if they were discovered via contact tracing (e.g. patient B’s wife was tested and she turns out to be infected too) or active surveillance, then it’s good.

SafeEntry and the proposed new device will help Singapore to contact trace better, which is important because of the next point.

Singaporeans Must Be Socially Responsible

So now, all that’s left is for people in Singapore to do their part.

If you’re feeling even a little bit unwell, go see a doctor.

Wear a mask at all time in case you’re a carrier of the virus and deep in the infectious period.

And wait patiently for Phase 2 to happen, which, if the experts are right, will be coming soon.