277 COVID-19 Cases Today (24 Jul); 5 in the Community & 2 Imported

It’s rather obvious that we’d be seeing over 50K by the end of this month, so now we’re just wondering if we’re going to celebrate Singapore’s 55th birthday with 55K cases.

Today, the Ministry of Health (MOH) has preliminarily confirmed an additional 277 cases of COVID-19 infection in Singapore.

This brings the total number of cases in Singapore to 49,375.

Out of today’s cases, 5 are community cases, with 2 of them Singaporeans or Singapore PRs.

There are also 2 imported cases who had been placed on Stay-Home Notice upon arrival in Singapore.

On average, based on yesterday’s numbers, the number of new cases in the community has decreased, from an average of 12 cases per day in the week before, to an average of 9 per day in the past week.

The number of unlinked cases in the community has also decreased, from an average of 7 cases per day in the week before, to an average of 5 per day in the past week.

And according to experts, if we remain disciplined, the community cases can remain at fewer than 20 cases daily for…I don’t know, until someone cancels 2020?

Experts Say S’pore Has ‘Very Good Chance’ to Keep Community Cases Within 10 to 20 a Day If We Follow the Rules

You see, according to Professor Teo Yik Ying, Dean of the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, Covid-19 outbreaks in other countries happened because of breaches in protocols.

Like South Korea and the warehouse that disregarded safe management measures and Hong Kong and their lax monitoring of people coming into the country.

He added that generally in Singapore, he sees most people keeping to the rules.

Unless you’re a Sovereign lah.

And as long as everyone keeps to the rules, Singapore has “a very good chance” of keeping community cases in the “10 to 20 range” every day.

Another expert, Professor Ooi Eng Eong, said that Covid-19 measures keep the disease at bay but is “costing Singapore in billions of dollars”.

He says that we must all “recalibrate” to the current situation.

Also, by all means, you can go out (it’s Phase Two, after all) but “don’t overdo it”, he added.

It is also important for people in Singapore to accept that the situation is “fluid”, meaning what is effective today might not be effective tomorrow.

Professor Dale Fisher, a senior infectious diseases expert at the National University Hospital (NUH), says that what is needed most to fight Covid-19 are two things:

• A strong public health response
• Good community behaviour

Singapore has the ability to “check” both checkboxes, and if we’re able to continue doing that, we can overcome this pandemic without a “second wave”.

So if you don’t want to celebrate Singapore’s 55th birthday with 55K cases, you know what to.

One more thing that you should do is, of course, to download the TraceTogether app. If you’re still worried about privacy, then watch this video (and also subscribe to our YouTube channel, please?):