Covid-19 crisis Prioritizing economy over public health
Earlier, Minister Wong said that phase 3 of the circuit breaker will start after 70% of the population has downloaded the Trace Together app or collected the token.

Recently, the prime minister announced the start of phase 3 towards the end of the year. Someone pointed out that only 50% of the population has Trace Together. He asked - is the government prioritizing the economy over public health?

I give my views. 

Frankly, Trace Together will not be effective in ensuring public health for many reasons:

* Many people who has Trace Together do not use it.
* The number of people who were located through Trace Together or Safe Entry is probably negligible, in spite of the great resources that are spent. 
* The few people that are located through these contract tracing activities are probably asymptomatic and do not spread the infection. (I saw a report from the World Health Organization to this effect).

In my view, the relaxation of the circuit breaker measures will not pose any danger to public health. We are over reacting to what is probably a very low risk. 

I believe that it is quite safe to start phase 3 now. In fact, I prefer that the circuit breaker be removed totally. 

We can still encourage people to wear a mask, practice safe distancing and have temperature scanning (using self service kiosks). If someone has a fever, he or she should go for covid testing at designated clinics that should be easily accessible.

We can continue to monitor the number of symptomatic cases, the number of hospital admissions and deaths. If the number remain small, we should not be alarmed. If the number jumped up significantly, we can then revert to stronger measures. 

For the sake of the economy, and to provide our services in global trade and finance, we can take this risk of opening up the economy. It is not a reckless approach, because we can still continue to monitor the numbers daily. 

I know that the spread of covid is serious is many countries that are entering the winter months. But the coronavirus is mild in warmer climates. Even the temperate countries have low spread and deaths during their summer months.

Tan Kin Lian

 

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