Covid-19 crisis Covid is under control in Singapore
About 600 people have infected with covid during the past month. Many were infected with variant D.

Many people were scared about the large number of new community cases. I believe that the fear is not justified. 

Here are my reasons.

I have been monitoring the number of people who are severely sick with covid and need to be treated with oxygen in the hospital. This number had remain stable between 10 to 15 during the past month.

This means that the 600 cases were not serious. Only 1 died (and that person is over 60 years). The others were discharged after being cured. 

There were 2 other deaths from covid during this period. They were patients who were already hospitalized due to severe chronic illnesses. They caught the covid infection in hospital and died afterwards. The underlying cause is their poor health, but it was accelerated by covid.

If 600 community cases result in only 1 death during one months, and there was no increase in severely ill patients, it is quite safe to conclude that the infection has been mild.

The new variant of covid did cause a large number of new cases and deaths in other countries, notably India and Malaysia, but not in Singapore. 

Why is Singapore better off than other countries? There are a number of reasons, which can be the subject of any discussion. 

However, the fact is that the covid is under control in Singapore and there is no need to over react and impose strict measures on social interaction.

We should instead worry that the strict measures might cause harm to businesses and livelihoods. The economic impact could be more serious than the health impact.

It is safe to relax the restrictive measures and allow life to return to normal.

There is the risk that the relaxation could cause a surge of infection and serious cases. This risk may be small. We can relax the restrictions now and see if the situation remains under control.

If the situation does get bad, e.g. if the number of severely ill people increase significantly from the current level, we can review the situation. 

I suggest that we only need to worry if the number doubles to 30 or more from the current level.

It is also important to allow life to return to normal and for people to regain their livelihood.

Tan Kin Lian

Vote - it is safe to relax our restrictions

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