The circuit breaker is over, and life is finally back to normal!
Well, except that you can’t really leave your house, meet your friends, dine out, go to work, go to the gym, go to the cinema, and drink bubble tea.
Other than that though, things are completely normal.
The government has taken a phased approach to the reopening of the country to ensure that the number of infections doesn’t spike again, but some residents just can’t wait that long.
An Illegal Gathering
Nine students were fined between S$2,500 and S$4,500 on Wednesday (June 3) after gathering at a rented apartment to have tea and study.
Three of the students were tenants of the apartment. They are Indian nationals Navdeep Singh, 20, Sajandeep Singh, 21, and Avinash Kaur, 27, according to TODAYonline.
Navdeep and Sajandeep were given the highest fines – $4,500 – for inviting people over, while their six guests were all fined $2,500.
The group had gathered on 5 May, while the circuit breaker was still in full force. How did they get caught?
An unidentified person called the police about “an altercation” at the 34A Kim Keat Road apartment.
And the police had quite a shock when they entered the apartment.
17 People Inside
The police probably expected to see two residents frustrated by the restrictions of the circuit breaker wrestling with each other, but found 17 people in the house instead.
Having 17 people in one apartment is pretty much the opposite of not having a social gathering.
According to TODAYonline, six of the 17 people, including the three accused tenants, were registered tenants of the unit.
Three of the tenants said they were living in the apartment ever since they were evicted from their own apartments. Another person was a sub-tenant who also claimed to live there.
The remaining seven people were guests of the tenants.
One tenant invited his guests over for tea, another to study, and one invited two friends over to collect items to send back to India on his behalf.
The tenants pleaded guilty for inviting guests over, and the guests pleaded guilty to meeting others for a social purpose.
It’s certainly strange to hear the sentence “pleaded guilty to meeting others for a social purpose”, but hey, times have changed.
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Pleaded With Judge
Deputy Public Prosecutor Stephanie Koh said that the apartment was “obviously overcrowded”, as it was only “legally tenanted to six persons”.
She also said that the accused students met “for a frivolous and completely unnecessary purpose in blatant disregard of the social distancing measures that the rest of society has taken pains to comply with”.
According to TODAYonline, the students were not represented and said that they could not afford to pay the large fines because they had taken loans to study in Singapore.
One of the tenants, Sandeep, who was fined $4,500, said he took a loan of 300,000 Indian rupees (S$5,560) to study in Singapore and had a clean record.
“Please give me a chance, I am very remorseful for what I have done,” he said through an interpreter. “I came to study so that I could brighten my future.”
Some of them said that they came from poor families in India.
One wonders, though, why they would risk it all just to have some friends over during the circuit breaker.
Things could have been much worse for them, however: for each charge of breaking Covid-19 regulations, they could have been jailed for up to six months, fined up to S$10,000, or both.
Social Gatherings Can Wait
Humans are social animals, but we’re also rational animals. Most of us understand that if everyone flouted safe distancing rules and met our friends, the number of Covid-19 infections would likely rise faster than a morning person.
Social visits will be allowed in Phase 2, and Minister for National Development Lawrence Wong recently said that we could enter this phase before the end of June.
Does Phase 1 feel like an extension of the circuit breaker? Sure.
Do I wish we could eat Chendol at the coffee shop? Sure.
Is meeting your parents and grandparents enough to satisfy our urge to socialise? No.
Am I asking too many questions? Probably.
But it won’t be long before we can see our beloved friends again. We just have to be patient. The Covid-19 battle is simply not something we can rush.
So, don’t invite your friends over for any reason, whether it’s tea, studying, or to engage in unspeakable acts.
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