Much to the joy of those of us who enjoy going to festivals and conventions, here’s a piece of good news – Singapore might be able to host large-scale events again.
Of course, there’s a price that comes along with this. Besides paying for the entrance fee, there’s now another pre-requisite one needs to fulfil before gaining access to events, as expected – a COVID-19 negative test result.
But this time, it doesn’t involve the standard rigorous swab tests and is actually pretty simple, as a certain minister has proven.
The New Fast & Furious Test
Announced by the Ministry of Health on 20 Oct, Singapore plans to pilot pre-event testing for COVID-19 with the use of Antigen Rapid Tests (ARTs) to allow for more large-scale events to be held again in a safe manner.
Currently, the swab tests we all know of to detect the virus are polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, but the results for these tests only come out after one or two days, which is too long of a window to conduct for pre-event testing.
However, with the ARTs, “fairly accurate” test results could return within 30 minutes, wrote the Ministry of Health in a factsheet.
These results will be valid for 24 hours from the administration, and in order for visitors to enter an event, it will have to be valid from the time of the start of the event until the end. This means that if the event takes place over a few days, one would have to test themselves every day.
However, one can still visit multiple different events within the 24 hour timeframe of their test results.
Testing may be carried out at the event venue before admission starts, or it could take place at separate testing facilities, in which attendees have to travel to prior to the event to get their negative result certification.
For those who have contracted COVID-19 before and recovered from it, they might be able to gain entry into events without taking the ART within a reasonable timeframe of 180 days since the day they took the PCR test and was confirmed to be positive. This is because they’re now likely to have immunity from the virus and are protected against infection.
The ART test kits for the current pilots are free of charge and footed by the Government, but it still remains to be seen if we (the patrons or organisers) have to be charged for it once this becomes a mainstream activity.
However, social distancing rules will still have to be implemented and followed in case of a positive ‘impostor’ among the crowd.
Sounds simple enough, right?
Lest there are still people who are afraid of taking COVID-19 tests for they fear it might be painful and uncomfortable having to stick a swab up their nose, this minister took it upon himself to show the public that it’s actually nothing to be afraid of.
Vivian Balakrishnan’s Tutorial Video
Unleashing his inner YouTuber, Vivian Balakrishnan, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, uploaded a three and a half minute long tutorial video of him self-administering the new COVID-19 Rapid Test on Facebook.
COVID-19 Antigen Rapid Testing – Demystified.
COVID-19 Antigen Rapid Testing – Demystified. Note: this test must be done under professional supervision.
Posted by Vivian Balakrishnan on Thursday, 22 October 2020
The minister aimed to show how convenient and quickly these new tests can be administered to check whether one has the presence of the COVID-19 virus living in them, especially if many were to go through with it before attending large-scale events.
Introducing the ART test kit in the video, which comprises of three components – a swabstick, a cartridge, and a timer, Dr Balakrishnan then proceeded to administer the test on himself while narrating the process.
The first step involved Dr Balakrishnan pushing the swabstick up his nose and twirling it five times in both nostrils to pick up mucus and cells, showing how it doesn’t have to go in as deep as it would in a PCR test.
It’s not everyday that you get to see a minister having a long swab up their nose while talking in front of a camera, but hey, this is the new normal, and nothing to be embarrassed about.
Next, the swabstick is inserted into the reagent container and twirled around for 15 seconds to dislodge the mucus, and is shaken to mix it.
Thereafter, Dr Balakrishnan dropped three drops of the mixture into the cartridge reader.
Similar to a pregnancy test kit, the reader will show red ink starting to rise up on the reader, with a line to indicate if the sample contains traces of COVID-19. After he inserted the reader into an analysing machine, the result flashed up on the screen, showing that Dr Balakrishnan’s result was negative.
After seeing what really happens in the test, it’s surprisingly actually not that scary.
Netizens Praise Him
Comments on Dr Balakrishnan’s post were singing praises about how Singapore’s government is always one step ahead and thanking him for doing this demonstration as a true indication of leadership.
Some netizens also couldn’t help but compare our government to the United States, where a certain president would never be caught dead taking such a test.
Here’s to also hoping the pre-event testing pilots will work out and we can all move towards this new normal together.
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