Covid-19 crisis Do not over react to the covid pandemic in India
The situation in India is bad. There has been a sharp increase in infection and death from covid. 

Many people in Singapore are worried that we can face the serious crisis that is happening in India. 

The experts in Singapore said that we should be concerned, but should not be over alarmed. 

I agree with this view. 

Here are the factors that made the spread of the pandemic very bad in India:

a) There were several large political rallies and religious events that attracted large numbers of people who participated without adequate precautions against covid.

b) Many people were in poor health due to malnutrition and obesity and are more susceptible to the covid virus.

c) There is inadequate checks for symptomatic cases that are likely to cause the virus to spread more rapidly.

All of these conditions are not present in Singapore. We will not face the scale of the health crisis that has occurred in India.  

I agree that we should be concerned and make sure that matters do not get out of control. But we do not need to be over alarmed. Here are my reasons:

a) Although there were about 10 community cases in Singapore each day, it does not increase exponentially. Why did the 10 cases not spread to 100 or 1000 cases? I suspect that most of these cases are asymptomatic (i.e. mild) and do not spread. 

b) There will be a few symptomatic cases that spread, but the number is still very small.

c) We have been implementing social distancing measures and border control. They are adequate. 

There are calls for the border closure to be completely closed for travelers from countries with high infection rates.

I think that the current measures are adequate and do not need to be strengthened.

All incoming travelers are already tested for covid. If they are found to be positive, they have to be quarantined. 

If they are tested negative, there is still a risk that they have the virus during the gestation period. From my observation over many months, this risk is actually quite small.

We hear about a handful of untraced community cases that occur daily. I believe that the virus is already in the community, but is mild. This is why the widespread testing, such as in Tan Tock Seng Hospital, will bring up a number of cases.

If the widespread testing is carried out among people in a mall or market, we will also catch a similar proportion of cases.

I may be wrong in my analysis. But I will not be alarmed until I see a large spread of the infection. This has not occurred yet. 

I think that it is unwise to take extreme measures and damage the economy by preventing people from earning a daily living. The economic harm may be worse than the health risk (which may be smaller than what is generally feared).

Tan Kin Lian

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