Ho Ching Assures S’pore Is More Capable Of Handling Covid-19 Now, Can Pre-Empt 2nd Wave

Ho Ching Apologises For Causing Alarm In Previous Post That Warned Of 2nd Wave

As the Covid-19 pandemic goes on with no end in sight, many countries in the West are experiencing 2nd waves that are worse than the first.

This has undoubtedly caused concern over whether Singapore can withstand a similar 2nd wave, especially after Temasek chief executive Ho Ching posted a warning on Facebook on “silent clusters” last week.

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In response, Mdm Ho posted a 2nd part to her initial post, apologising for alarming people, and assuring Singaporeans that we have the capacity and capability to pre-empt any 2nd wave from happening.

Here’s an excerpt of her latest Facebook post on Covid-19, made on Sunday (1 Nov).

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Her full post can be found here.

Ho Ching warned of young people spreading virus

In her initial post on Wednesday (28 Oct), the wife of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong warned that young people in their 20s and 30s are the “main driver” of the 2nd wave.

That’s because they’re “very mobile physically and socially” before their symptoms show. Even just after symptoms show, they’re at their most infectious but still well enough to spread the virus.

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Hence, studies show that before a young person is sick enough to see a doctor – “probably after his girl friend, wife or his mother nags him”, Mdm Ho said – he might already have kicked off “3 or 4 generations of infections”.

That means the people that he or she infects go on to infect others, and so on.

This is how silent clusters can build up before many cases pop up among the population and we have a 2nd wave.

Here’s an excerpt of Mdm Ho’s post on Wednesday (28 Oct):

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Her full post can be seen here.

Singapore’s situation now different

In her latest Covid-19-related post, Mdm Ho acknowledged that besides the danger of young people spreading the disease, Singaporeans are also concerned about a 2nd wave if we allow too many travellers to enter Singapore without Stay-Home Notice (SHN).

They possibly would have arrived under the planned unilateral opening of borders to travellers from some countries, including mainland China.

However, she assured Singaporeans that the situation now is different from that in March or April.

For one thing, we stringently test all arrivals before they’re allowed to roam freely in the community.

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That’s regardless of whether they’re serving SHN or not.

And this testing protocol may be improved with more comfortable tests that can be repeated.

Singapore has more knowledge, capacities, tools & capabilities

Back when we were experiencing the 1st wave, Mdm Ho said,

…we didn’t have the capacities nor the tools and capabilities we have today.

Now, we have more knowledge, capacities, tools and capabilities, than we did even in Sep, she added.

Some of the things we now have include:

1. Stocks of a rapid antigen test since Oct. They show results in 15 minutes and help to isolate cases in the community and imported cases earlier.

Photo courtesy of MOM

2. Safety precautions like safe distancing, crowd management, mask wearing and hand sanitising. This will ensure infected cases spread the virus to just 1 person instead of more.

3. A whole-of-nation approach to combating the virus.

Community screening not totally in place yet

Mdm Ho however cautioned that our community screening systems aren’t fully in place yet.

We do have an advantage though, now that our community cases are few and the migrant workers dormitories are mostly cleared.

As she pointed out,

The best time to repair or revamp a roof is during sunny weather.

Thus, while our healthcare workers aren’t overwhelmed with infected cases, we can turn our efforts towards finding solutions to contain any possible spread.

That includes various pilots for community testing.

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Pilots for mass testing and safe distancing at group events are also being carried out.

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With the data that’s collected from these pilots, policies and practices can be refined, Mdm Ho said.

They also allow the authorities to practice so the response to any outbreak is fast and efficient.

Precautions should continue for 3 to 6 months

After alarming some Singaporeans by warning of a 2nd wave, it’s reassuring that Mdm Ho says that Singapore is prepared to pre-empt it.

However, she said we should be prepared to maintain these precautions for another 3 to 6 months, and work with various agencies to pilot more community testing.

While the public is understandably concerned with what’s happening in other countries, at least we know that thanks to the efforts of many over the last few we’re more prepared than ever.

Let’s hope that the globe will be out of the woods soon when it comes to this pesky disease.

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Featured images courtesy of MOM and from Facebook.