Singapore Has Top 3 Highest Covid-19 Cases In SE Asia After Indonesia & Philippines

Singapore Covid-19 Total Case Numbers Are Third Highest In Southeast Asia

As global Covid-19 case counts exceeded 2 million patients worldwide, a worrying trend has emerged for Singapore.

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While our peers in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Korea’s lockdowns have resulted in a decrease or stabilisation of new Covid-19 cases, Singapore’s total patient count appears to rank the third highest in Southeast Asia.

Total Case Count / Death Toll by WorldOMeters
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With total local Covid-19 cases hitting 5,992 last night (18 Apr), we rank behind Indonesia and Philippines in the region for active cases.

Here’s a breakdown of the numbers and how the spike in recent days may seem worrying, but also present a silver lining for our nation.

Progressive spike in cases over past 5 days

Just 2 days ago, The Thaiger reported that Indonesia had overtaken Philippines as the SEA country with the most active Covid-19 infections.

Total Case Count / Death Toll
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Singapore on the other hand, was ranked below Malaysia at 5,050 cases. In a little over 48 hours, this number has grown to 5,992 as of 19 Apr, 10am.

Case Numbers (Total/New)

14 Apr – 3,252 cases
15 Apr – 3,699 cases (447 new, 10 dead)
16 Apr – 4,427 cases (728 new, 10 dead)
17 Apr – 5,050 cases (623 new, 11 dead)
18 Apr – 5,992 cases (942 new, 11 dead)

Over the past 5 days, we’ve moved from 3.2k total cases to close to 6k — with majority of new cases linked to workers’ dormitory clusters across the island.

Singapore has announced that all construction sector staff & workers holding S-pass and work permits must serve a mandatory 14-day Stay Home Notice (SHN) from 18 Apr, to help limit the spread.

Death toll remains low in comparison

The spike in confirmed Covid-19 cases may sound alarming, especially since 893 out of 942 – around 95% of new cases yesterday – involve Work Permit holders who reside in dormitories.

A silver lining is that the death toll remains at 11 — indicative that chances of making a full recovery from the coronavirus remain high for most patients. This is compared to the death toll in Indonesia (520 cases) & Philippines (387 cases) respectively.

Most deaths in Singapore have also involved at-risk members of the population, elderly citizens with pre-existing conditions — mostly seniors above the age of 70.

Hong Kong, Taiwan & Korea look to return to normalcy

Looking to our peers in Asia for an example, we can see another pattern emerging.

With Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea and Vietnam successfully flattening their curves via strict lockdowns & single digit to no new cases daily — our neighbours are moving one step closer to resuming normalcy in the daily lives of citizens.

Of course, this comes with the assumption that no further clusters have been left unchecked or undetected in their nations.

Looking forward to business as usual soon

Businesses and citizens alike have felt the heavy toll of social distancing measures in Singapore, but we’re thankful that essential services are still up and running.

On the flipside, we hope that the situation in workers’ dormitories will improve significantly, once tighter measures begin to impact the case count.

Must tahan 2 more weeks of Circuit Breaker

With about 2 more weeks of Circuit Breaker measures to go, we hope that Singapore continues conduct open & transparent reporting of case numbers as we await for the results to stabilise.

Do you think that Singapore should have considered going on a full lockdown like our regional neighbours earlier? Or are you satisfied with Singapore’s transparency & efforts to contain the spread of Covid-19 within dormitories?

We’d love to hear what you think in the comments below.

Featured image adapted from MS News, Britannica & BaoMui.