It seems that the COVID-19 situation isn’t getting any better, but instead, getting worse as more countries report spikes in the number of COVID-19 cases that they have.
Despite being considered pretty successful at containing the highly contagious virus, Singapore should not be too complacent and relax just yet. After all, we just had our first two deaths, and we now already have 455 cases.
PM Lee Believes Virus Will Continue For “Quite Some Time”
In an interview with The Australian newspaper last Friday, Prime Minister Lee said that the government has done its best to battle against COVID-19 while ensuring that Singapore’s borders are safe for essential trade and cooperation with other countries. Nevertheless, he believes that the virus will continue “for quite some time” after looking at current evidence.
He said, “If I made an analogy, it is not that the tide has turned, it is that we put the dykes up. We are watching very carefully to see where water may leak in, and if you take your eyes off it for a moment, suddenly I have an outbreak, like what happened in South Korea, and I will be in a perilous situation. It can happen to us at any time.”
Despite other countries being able to keep the number of cases in their countries down, the virus continues to be rapidly spread throughout the world.
He commented that the virus “is going to catch fire in many countries, and is going to take a long time to burn out”.
We Should All Pray For A Vaccine To Come Faster
The only thing we can do now other than taking the necessary precautions is to pray for a vaccine to come faster.
But that doesn’t mean holding big gatherings and praying together, because that is just a pandemic waiting to happen.
PM Lee shared with his Australian counterpart Scott Morrison today, “What you can hope for is that you control the spread of the disease, you hold the position, and hope and pray that the scientists come up with either a treatment or a vaccine within a year or two.”
This is just like the time that Singapore attempted to make our own flu vaccine for H1N1 for the very first time by collaborating with Switzerland scientists. So as long as we believe, we will one day be able to cure everyone of COVID-19 as quickly as someone is confirmed to be infected with it.
He also explained that every country has to find its own balance to avoid “the doomsday scenario, namely that the disease goes through the whole population”.
He added, “Either it is going to leave you with huge casualties or it is going to take forever and to lock down forever. I think it is an enormous economic cost and human cost too.”
Singapore’s Success In Containing The Virus So Far
PM Lee didn’t deny that Singapore has been quite successful in containing the virus so far, and he revealed that it was all due to good social trust, ample medical capacity and extensive contact tracing despite us being a densely populated island.
If you didn’t already know, the authorities have done their best to contact-trace once a case has been detected. This is to ensure that all immediate contacts are put either on notice or on quarantine depending on whether they have displayed any symptoms.
Bet you didn’t know that thousands of people have already been contact-traced. Yep, that’s how effective we are.
While he noted that it is “labour intensive”, he understands that this is necessary because it helps in “preventing one single case from becoming many hundred cases”, as long as you “catch it in time”.
And plus, we now even have a new app for contact tracing.
He also added that Singaporeans’ social trust in the government can easily be eroded if assets were not built upon, especially during a crisis.
And when this happens, you have a lot of mistrust towards the government and you’ll have chaos amidst the pandemic.
He then explained that this is the reason why Singapore has press conferences almost every day “to bring people up to date and to prepare people when something particularly significant or surprising happens”.
It is important for transparency and engagement because well, nobody likes being out of the loop. And like we said in a previous article, we like to feel that we are in control of the situation, and having knowledge about what’s going on gives us the impression that we have control over the situation.
Without these, we will begin to doubt what we are told or even think that the government is deliberately hiding things from us.
Doing Our Part
As you can see, Singapore has been trying its best to contain the virus, and as citizens, we have the responsibility to do our part to ensure that our environment continues to remain safe.
We need to stand together during this time of crisis and should not let any seeds of mistrust grow.
The moment we fail to believe in our government is the moment that chaos will ensue and the pandemic will continue.
So while we are all panicking about the COVID-19 situation, continue to pray for a vaccine and have faith that we will be able to overcome this!
Here’s a simplified summary of the South Korea martial law that even a 5-year-old would understand:
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