- Singapore may need to reimpose Covid-19 restrictions if a new outbreak of Delta variant is not contained.
- The city-state’s shift towards living with the virus could put its residents at risk, officials say.
- The state officials in Australia warned against prematurely opening state borders.
Singapore has warned it may need to reimpose Covid-19 restrictions if a new outbreak of the highly infectious Delta variant is not contained, putting the city’s shift towards living with the virus at risk, reports CNN.
“Covid Zero” Policy
The head of Singapore’s Covid-19 task team, Lawrence Wong, said the Singaporean government is concerned not only about the total number of daily cases but also about “the rate at which the virus is spreading.”
“We know from the experience of other countries that when cases rise so sharply, there will be many more ICU cases and many more people succumbing to the virus,” he said.
During the outbreak, Singapore implemented a severe “Covid zero” policy, including closing restaurants, blocking borders, and mandating social distancing. ” The bad news is that Covid-19 may never go away. The good news is that it is possible to live normally with it in our midst,” Singapore’s top Covid-19 officials wrote in an op-ed.
New Restrictions
Singapore has also banned all workplace gatherings, and Wong has urged Singaporeans to stay away from unnecessary social engagements while the outbreak is being contained.
He attributed Singapore’s ability to maintain a level of openness amid the latest outbreak to the country’s new policy and high vaccination rates. “But if despite our best efforts, we find that the number of serious cases needing oxygen in ICU care goes up sharply, then we may have no case but to tighten our overall posture, so we should not rule that out,” he stated.
A warning for other countries
For months, millions of people in the Australian states of New South Wales and Victoria had been on lockdown while local authorities tried to manage Delta outbreaks. They’ve since admitted that’s not going to happen. Some state officials in Australia have warned against prematurely opening state borders, questioning why they would willingly expose their populations to the virus. There are presently no Covid-19 cases in the community in Western Australia or Queensland.
Western Australia Premier Mark McGowan said, “We have some of the freest, most open, exciting communities in the world, and we want to keep it that way while we get our population vaccinated. The idea that we would prematurely decide to deliberately import the virus … is complete madness.”
According to some epidemiologists, easing limitations before vaccination rates in vulnerable groups are high enough could have disastrous consequences.
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Source: CNN
