A member of the public, Peter Khaw, wrote to Straits Times Forum expressing his worries over the number of imported COVID-19 cases into Singapore everyday. His letter was published today (‘Forum: Daily number of imported Covid-19 cases worrying‘, 14 Apr).
“I am concerned when I read the daily update on imported Covid-19 cases and see a large number of foreigners, some holding dependant’s pass, work permits or student passes and coming from countries with very high infection numbers,” Mr Khaw wrote.
“As Singapore is not out of the woods yet, I wonder why we are not closing our borders and stopping imported cases.”
Mr Khaw noted that Singapore has been dealing with the high social and economic costs of the pandemic for more than a year.
“Do we want to take any more chances or risks, and potentially have to go through trying times once again?” he asked.
268 imported cases in 11 days
Indeed, there are dozens of imported cases discovered by the authorities everyday. Looking at the data provided from Singapore’s Ministry of Health (MOH), there have been a total of 268 imported cases in the 11 days from 1 Apr this month.
Of the 268 imported cases into Singapore, the largest number came from Indian nationals. Bangladeshi came in second while Indonesians third.
The following is a breakdown of the number of imported cases by nationalities from 1 Apr to 11 Apr this month:
- Indian – 82
- Bangladeshi -66
- Indonesian – 29
- Filipino – 16
- Burmese – 9
- Malaysian – 6
- French – 3
- British -2
- American – 2
- Canadian – 2
- Ukrainian – 2
- PNG – 2
- Brazilian – 1
- Serbian – 1
- Japanese – 1
- Chinese – 1
As for the locals among the imported cases:
- Singaporean – 16
- Permanent Residents (PR) – 27
MOH did not breakdown the nationalities of PR who were infected with COVID-19 coming back to Singapore but of the 27, 19 has travelled from India to Singapore.
