A few weeks ago, the Singapore government launched a social experiment with covid-19. According to the President of Singapore, it may be difficult for humans to completely eliminate the virus, and it is impossible for humans to block it forever, is the trend of covid-19 becoming a endemic disease inevitable, instead of which humans should try to coexist with the virus "new normal".
A few weeks ago, the Singapore government announced its intention to move from a "zero infection" strategy to a so-called "new normal". With Vaccination Rates Steadily Climbing in Singapore, Singapore intends to make bold attempts – lifting lockdowns and large-scale contact tracing, allowing the resumption of unisoted travel and resuming large gatherings. It will even stop counting daily COVID-19 cases. Focus on the number of severe cases rather than the total number of infections.
This approach is different from the epidemic prevention strategy of our country and most countries in the world, which no longer focuses on how many people have been infected with the virus, but focuses on severe patients, as long as serious patients do not break out, then there will be no risk of running on the medical system, which is a kind of epidemic prevention strategy that treats the new crown virus as a conventional endemic disease.
In short, Singapore wants to use the "new normal" to show the world that living with Covid is possible.
Singapore's "new normal" experiment to deal with the virus has received widespread attention, there is no doubt that Singapore's policies will be severely tested by the virus, can Singapore successfully come out of a new model of virus coexistence?
The world did not expect Singapore's failure, but what it did not expect was that the failure came so quickly that Singapore's "new normal" lasted only a few weeks before it failed and a new blockade began.
On Friday, Singapore announced it would tighten certain social distancing measures and step up close contact tracing and testing, including the reintroduction of rules prohibiting eating in restaurants and limiting the number of people allowed to gather from 5 to 2 people...
The reason is that in the weeks of relaxation in Singapore, the number of Covid-19 cases has risen rapidly and sharply. Multiple clusters of infections have emerged around karaoke halls, wet markets and hawker food centers, raising social concerns. Data released by Singapore's Ministry of Health last week showed a total of 480 community cases, up sharply from 19 reported in the previous seven days.
Given the current rate of transmission, it is expected that the number of infections will also increase significantly.
Singapore's "new normal" has failed so quickly because even if Singapore is a small place, society is complex and diverse, and vaccines cannot stop the rapid spread of delta variants. If the new normal does not suppress the outbreak of cases, there will be an increase in both the number of severe cases and the number of deaths. Even the injection of the vaccine reduces severe illness.
Take the recent KTV cluster infection. Karaoke bars operate technically as dining venues during the pandemic when nightlife venues are closed. According to The Straits Times, KTV waitresses are often invisible behind dark glass or soundproof doors, but often greet customers without wearing masks, guide them into the room for 30 minutes, and then flip over to new customers. Many of these women are not vaccinated, and they divide their time among multiple customers, sometimes even between multiple locations. According to the newspaper, customers also often shuttle between the lounges. In short, night after night of potential super-spreader events.
In response, the government has suspended hundreds of nightlife venues for two weeks, and police have arrested 29 women. Ten of them, aged between 21 and 34, were described by officials as "unwelcome immigrants" and their short-term visit and work permits were cancelled, The Straits Times reported. They will be deported.
Such dramatic results are not inevitable. Nightclubs transitioning to restaurants should be monitored from the start. Singapore has been tightening rules on foreign workers and carefully monitoring its borders. But there are always blind spots in society, and Singapore does have very detailed new normal measures, but the government is unlikely to block all the blind spots in society.
This is not Singapore's first blind spot. In the early months of the pandemic, schools and businesses remained open, Singaporeans roamed the city without masks, and Covid remained under control. However, this stagnation collapsed in the wake of the outbreak in migrant workers' dormitories, where hundreds of thousands of workers were crammed into cramped spaces where a toilet could accommodate 15 people. The virus spread like wildfire.
In order to successfully transition to coexistence with the virus, it is essential to prevent obvious harms. Singapore has obviously noticed this, but the government's management of society is not a panacea, and the spread of the new crown virus is characterized by the fact that as long as you have any loophole, it will affect the overall situation.