SINGAPORE, Oct 9 — Living with Covid-19 “has not been a smooth and easy journey” but Singapore cannot stay locked down and closed off indefinitely, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong reiterated today (October 9) in his live address to the nation on the pandemic situation.
Acknowledging the concerns and frustrations of Singaporeans over the past few weeks regarding the Government’s reopening strategy amid a surge of cases, Mr Lee laid out the reasons for the recent changes in Covid-19 policies.
“All of you are understandably anxious. Many have found it difficult to keep up with new policies and changes to measures,” he said.
Singapore’s original “zero Covid” strategy had worked last year at the start of the pandemic, and was “the right strategy at that time” and helped the nation avoid the huge loss of life experienced in many countries while allowing the Government to secure vaccine supply.
But the emergence of the highly infectious Delta variant led to a higher than expected number of cases, Mr Lee said.
That was why, despite transitioning to a “living with Covid-19” approach, the Government tightened restrictions last month to guard against the outbreak overwhelming the healthcare system, he added.
On September 27, Singapore moved from the preparatory stage of its Covid-19 recovery to a “stabilisation phase”, reimposing a two-person limit on social gatherings and for vaccinated people dining at eateries among other restrictions.
Mr Lee has delivered several national addresses since the start of the pandemic, often fronting announcements when Singapore made a key shift in its reopening plan.
In April last year, Mr Lee announced the circuit breaker phase that mandated strict restrictions and shutdowns across various parts of the economy.
Then, after announcing an extension of the circuit breaker, Mr Lee in June last year assured Singaporeans that the country will emerge stronger after the crisis and underlined how and why the country “will not falter in its onward march”.
This was part of a series of broadcasts by several ministers on Singapore’s post-Covid future.
But since then, as the pandemic has dragged on, Mr Lee has come out several more times to talk about Singapore’s reopening plan.
His last such address on May 31 sketched out how Singapore would relax more stringent rules to combat Covid-19 as it adjusts to a new approach to keeping the coronavirus under control by testing, tracing close contacts of infected persons and vaccinating more quickly and widely than before.
Cases Rose ‘More Sharply than Anticipated’
Today, Mr Lee said that at the outset of the pandemic, the Government’s starting point was its experience in eradicating the severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak in 2003.
“Our original approach was to do our utmost to prevent Singaporeans from being exposed to Covid-19,” he said.
At the time, the zero-Covid strategy succeeded, and Singapore had one of the lowest Covid-19 death rates in the world, he said.
The Government had also secured vaccine supplies as data began showing that vaccines sharply reduce the risk of serious illness.
“In other words, with vaccination, Covid-19 is no longer a dangerous disease for most of us,” he said.
But with the emergence of the Delta variant, even with the whole population vaccinated, Singapore would still not be able to stamp it out through lockdowns and safe management measures, Mr Lee said.
The success of Singapore’s zero-Covid strategy also meant that the country’s natural population immunity against the coronavirus was low.
Yet, Singapore cannot stay locked down and closed off indefinitely, Mr Lee stressed.
“It would not work, and it would be very costly,” he said. “We would be unable to resume our lives, participate in social activities, open our borders, and revive our economy.”
The disruption to business, school and families cause psychological and emotional strain as well as mental fatigue for Singaporeans as well as the migrant workers here, he said.
Mr Lee added that that was why Singapore eased the heightened alert restrictions in August when 80 per cent of the population was vaccinated.
But while the Government expected cases to go up, “the numbers went up more sharply than we had anticipated, because the Delta variant was so infectious”, Mr Lee said.
“‘Living with Covid-19’ has not been a smooth and easy journey,” he added. “Initially, our healthcare system was still able to cope. But we worried that it would come under significant strain, and it has.”
As total cases grow exponentially, the number of serious cases will also grow in step, he said, noting that 2 per cent or less of the infected cases in Singapore developed more serious illnesses.
“Even 2 per cent of a very large number will translate to many patients needing hospital and intensive care unit beds.”
That, Mr Lee said, prompted the Government to tighten restrictions last month to slow down the growth in cases, ease the burden on the healthcare workers and stabilise the healthcare system.
He added: “We are using this time to further expand healthcare capacity and strengthen our case management so that we can better identify Covid patients with mild symptoms to recover at home.
“And make sure we can care properly for those who fall seriously ill, as well as continue to attend to the many non-Covid patients who also have urgent medical needs.” — TODAY
