Health Minister Explains Why It’s Still Not DORSCON Red Even With the Latest Major Measures

We’re not on lockdown.

Let’s get this straight: it feels like a lockdown, it looks like a lockdown and it certainly sounds like one.

But the official term for this is a “Circuit Breaker”.

I tried checking online to see if it’s a term that’s really being used to stop the community spread of a virus or anything, but couldn’t find anything unless it’s only used in scholarly papers written by infectious disease experts to infectious disease experts lah.

If not, it’s just a creative term used to describe the measures—just like how the previous measures were described as brakes.

By now, even the cats living in Yishun would know the details about the Circuit Breaker, but one question remains:

Shouldn’t we be in DORSON Red then?

Definition of DORSON Red

Lest you’ve forgotten, here’s a handy table that describes all the DORSON levels in Singapore:

For DORSON Red to occur, it must fulfil these criteria:

Nature of Disease
It must be severe and is spreading widely.

Impact on Daily Life
There must be major disruption in our daily life, like school closures, work from home system and with a significant number of deaths.

When DORSON is red, public is advised to be socially responsible, maintain good person hygiene, comply with control measures and practise social distancing.

Now, if you’ve indeed read everything, you’d go: So we’re at DORSON Red, now?

Apparently not.

Yet.

Health Minister: Still “Quite a Distance” From DORSON Red

Wait, why?

Doesn’t it fulfil all the criteria?

Apparently not.

In a press conference that was held immediately after PM Lee’s speech, Health Minister Gan Kim Yong said we’re not at that level yet.

To be at DOSRON Red, there must be “uncontrollable outbreaks”, “very widespread community transmission” and it must be difficult to do contact tracing and quarantines, and we’d have to rely “purely on safe distancing.”

Sounds like Italy. Or Raccoon City.

Which is why, according to Mr Gan, we’re still “quite a distance” from DORSCON Red.

So we’re now still at DORSCON Orange.

DORSCON Orange with a Circuit Breaker.

Number of Confirmed Cases in Singapore Now

As of today (3 April 2020), Singapore has a total of 1,114 cases.

Today, a total of 65 confirmed cases were reported, and only 9 are imported.

Out of the remaining 56 local cases, 39 are linked to previously confirmed cases or clusters.  17 of them are currently unlinked.

3 new clusters were also found today: a bar, a club and a construction site, which you can read all about here.