Harvard Says S’pore’s Method of Detecting New COVID-19 is the Best in the World

Singapore is known for being the first at a lot of things.

Being the most ignorant people in the world.

The top airport in the world.

And now, the best at detecting Covid-19.

New Harvard Study Says S’pore’s Covid-19 Detection Capability Is “Gold Standard”

On 17 Feb 2020, a new study by Harvard University researchers found Singapore’s Covid-19 detection capability to be the best in the world.

To the team, Singapore’s detection of 18 Covid-19 cases by 4 Feb 2020 is “a gold standard of near-perfect detection”, they added.

In fact, when compared to the rest of the world, we’re doing almost three times better.

The team behind the report claimed that if the entire world has our level of detection capability, they’ll discover three times more cases than now.

It added that Singapore has always been strong at collecting, analysing and distributing health data.

And that our contract tracing is top-notched.

The Study

Currently, the study is not peer-reviewed yet.

The team looked at an aggregated data of imported cases as of 4 Feb 2020 from the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Then, they compared the data against air travel records from several sources.

After which, they used a model to calculate how well each country has managed to detect imported cases.

The team claimed that their model is 95% statistically reliable.

How Other Countries Compare

So, you’re wondering, if Singapore is number one, how did the other countries fare?

According to the report, countries like Thailand, Australia and South Korea came in at 40% when compared to Singapore.

And they’re considered the higher ones.

Several Middle Eastern and South African nations only came in at 11%.

However, the study also mentioned that Singapore, while held as a benchmark, isn’t detecting 100% of the cases as well.

Regardless, This is Good News

People are less willing to travel out of their house now because they’re afraid of getting Covid-19.

Now that you know Singapore has a near-perfect track record of detecting Covid-19 cases, this means curbing the spread of Covid-19 is also entirely plausible, as long as Singaporeans also do their part.

After all, after detecting comes preventing.

Meanwhile, do bookmark MOH’s website for daily updates on the Covid-19 situation in Singapore and subscribe to Gov.sg’s WhatsApp service. After all, you now have one more reason to trust the authorities.