No Flu Cases in S’pore Polyclinics for More Than 8 Months After Circuit Breaker

COVID-19 isn’t something we want happening to us, that we can all agree on.

But one thing we cannot deny, though, is that it’s not all bad.

For one, it has drawn in several advancements which, if there was no COVID-19, would take decades to implement.

Such as working from home.

And two, it’s surprisingly good at putting competitors (read: other common viruses) out of business.

No Flu Cases in S’pore Polyclinics for More Than 8 Months After Circuit Breaker

On 1 Mar 2021, it was reported that Singapore has zero influenza cases (flu) for more than 8 months at the polyclinics and sentinel GP clinics used by MOH to track influenza strains.

This is something that hasn’t been seen in Singapore over the past ten years.

Up until the Circuit Breaker in Apr 2020, and the mandatory mask-wearing in Singapore, there hasn’t been a month without a laboratory-confirmed influenza case.

The last influenza case was detected in May 2020.

About 200 to 250 samples are still being tested by MOH per month, a spokesperson for the ministry said.

Reasons Why This Is Happening

According to Dr Asok Kurup, who chairs the Academy of Medicine’s Chapter of Infectious Disease Physicians, it could be due to the takeup rate of flu vaccines last year.

People were advised to be vaccinated against influenza so they would not be mistaken as having COVID-19, which shares similar symptoms.

People are also not travelling so they’re not bringing bugs and viruses back into Singapore, he added.

Might Not Be Zero Cases

While the number of influenza cases might’ve dropped drastically, it doesn’t mean that it’s at zero cases.

Associate Professor Hsu Li Yang at NUS pointed out that people might not seek treatment, especially for mild symptoms.

Then, there are those who decided not to seek treatment because they want to avoid the COVID-19 test and the 5-day MC.

And of course, if you’ve read through everything, you’d know that only some samples are sent for testing; most of us who have the flu won’t have our samples sent over.

Pretty sure more than 250 people visited the doctor for flu-like illnesses in a month in the whole of Singapore, if not clinics would all have closed down.

I mean, in the last ten years, whenever you visited a doctor for flu, has he or she taken any samples from you to test before telling you that you’ve the flu or the common cold? No, right?

So this is just an agak agak figure to show you the dramatic drop in flu cases; just that just nice it’s now dropped to 0 lah.

Still A Good Thing

Whether zero cases or not, you can’t argue that this is a good thing.

As you’d probably guess by now, the various safe management measures for COVID-19 also have a spillover effect for other diseases.

Wearing masks minimise the risk of transmission via water droplets in the air, and practising good hand hygiene, among others, makes it harder for viruses to transmit via surfaces.

Just as PM Lee said, just because COVID-19 is over doesn’t mean our battle has ended.

We still have to prepare to face disease X, after all.

A spokesperson for MOH also said that as Singapore starts opening up once again, we will see influenza cases rise up once more.

Feature Image: siam.pukkato / Shutterstock.com