An online petition on Change.org titled “Cancel Singapore National Day Parade (NDP) 2021” sees an increase of signatures by 320 percent in just a day.
The petition, which was initiated by a person named Abby See, started on Monday (19 July) to urge the Government to cancel 2021 NDP celebration due to the growing number of COVID-19 cases in the country.
When TOC reported about this petition yesterday (21 July), it had only garnered slightly more than 8,000 signatures.
However, at the time of writing, there are over 34,500 signatures received, showing an increment of 321.88 percent.
It aims to receive 35,000 signatures to be deemed as one of the top signed petitions on Change.org.
As for the content of the petition, it mentioned that it “does not make any sense” for the Government to conduct a public event given that the number of COVID-19 cases are rising, adding that the event is not considered as “essential during a pandemic”.
It added that even if NDP is not considered a social gathering, it is still a “mass-scale gathering”, noting that thousands of people will be present at the event when they shouldn’t – regardless of whether they’re vaccinated or not.
The petition also questioned the need for NDP to be given the green light when the Government continuously has urged the public stay at home.
Most of the signatories wrote to suggest that the money used to run the event should be directed to helping those in need during this time of pandemic and that the event itself is a potential COVID spreader event.