Finance Minister Lawrence Wong revealed on Monday (6 September) that if COVID-19 continues to spread in the community at the current rate, then it would be possible for Singapore to record 2,000 new daily cases in a month’s time.
He added that the authorities are more concerned about the rate which the virus is spreading than the total number of cases.
Mr Wong explained that Singapore’s reproduction rate of the coronavirus, or R value, is currently above one, and cases are doubling every week. The R value measures the average number of people that one infected person will pass the virus on to.
He said this while speaking to the media on Monday on a variety of new advisories and measures released to curb the spread of the virus.
Singapore has been recording high number of COVID-19 cases in recent weeks. In fact, the number of new cases in the community almost doubled to more than 1,200 cases last week, an increase from about 600 cases the week earlier. On Wednesday, 349 new infections were recorded in Singapore, bringing the total number of cases in the country to 69,582.
“We know from the experience of other countries that when cases rise so sharply, there would be many more intensive care unit (ICU) cases and also people succumbing to the virus,” he said.
He added, “It is not just the unvaccinated seniors, because even for vaccinated persons, there will be a small proportion of them falling severely ill. And if you have a very high infection caseload, that small proportion will translate to a sizeable number of ICU cases, and eventually fatalities.”
Although measures are in place to curb the spread of the virus without having the need to return to a heightened alert state or a circuit breaker, but these option are not completely being ruled out, said Mr Wong.
“If, despite our best efforts, we find that the number of serious cases needing oxygen and ICU care goes up sharply, then we may have no choice but to tighten our overall posture.”
Netizens slam authorities for its poor measures
Upon reading this news, online users were quick to express their dissatisfactions towards the Government. Commenting in the Facebook page of The Straits Times, they said that the ministers are “over confident and hasty” in making their decisions to open the borders and failed to address the sudden surge in cases.
Others said that the Government is flip-flopping its decisions by having “full of contradictions from (March) 2020”.
One user wrote: “They (ministers) do not understand how unsettling their messaging is for people and (especially) businesses. I wish Parliament would call them on this and question their flip flops.”
Some question the need to reopen Singapore’s borders and economy given that the cases are so high.
