One in six foreign workers in dorms contracted Covid-19, based on official tally

‘About one in six foreign workers living in dormitories contracted Covid-19, a calculation based on Singapore's official tally showed, but the true infection rate in the dormitories is likely to be higher than this, experts say. If accurate, however, an infection rate of one in six would not be enough for herd immunity to develop in the migrant worker population, they added. A total of 52,425 out of 323,000 workers had been infected as of Wednesday.’

Read here (Straits Times, August 14, 2020)

Long and hard battle to clear worker dorms of Covid-19

On August 7, Singapore finished testing all 323,000 workers in dorms for Covid-19 -- a "massive undertaking" that has taken four months. This story with a video shows how the Sungei Tengah Lodge, a worker dormitory for 23,000, has been cleared of Covid-19. It provides some images of the living conditions there (after they have been cleaned up) and reveals how various agencies as well as the dorm operator have worked together to clear the virus.

Read here (Straits Times, August 8, 2020) 

Electronic wristband to ensure stay-home notice: Quarantine monitoring devices being used by others worldwide

Besides Singapore, many other places in the world have also turned to electronic monitoring devices to help them control the spread of the coronavirus. Here are some places that do so: Hong Kong, South Korea, Malaysia (Sarawak), Jordan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Liechtenstein.

Read here (Straits Times, August 4, 2020)

Travellers to Singapore to wear electronic tracking device while serving Covid-19 stay-home notice outside of facilities

‘All travellers entering Singapore who are serving their stay-home notice (SHN) outside of dedicated facilities will soon have to wear an electronic monitoring device. From Aug 10, 11.59pm, such travellers will have to wear the device throughout the 14-day stay-home period. They include citizens, permanent residents, long-term pass holders, work pass holders and their dependants. Children aged 12 and below are exempted.’

Read here (Straits Times, August 4, 2020)

Coronavirus: Just 0.3% of cases in Singapore admitted to ICU

‘While Covid-19 cases in Singapore have surged past 50,000, only a tiny fraction of those who fell ill - just 128, or 0.3 per cent - have been admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) as of Monday. Experts said years of investment in healthcare, as well as a well thought out and executed strategy to keep infection numbers low, have helped to ensure the Republic has one of the world's lowest ICU admission - and fatality - rates from Covid-19.’

Read here (Straits Times, July 31, 2020)

Dengue fever, second wave: What are the hurdles Singapore faces in its coronavirus fight?

(1) Clearing the Covid-19 disease from worker dormitories remains the biggest challenge. ‘The testing in dorms is now in the “final stretch”, with 232,000 cases confirmed as recovered or virus-free as of July 16.’
(2) Singapore’s second challenge comes from imported cases, although the city state has limited this risk by shutting its borders.
(3) Singapore also faces the risk of a resurgence in infections triggered by a failure to comply with safe-distancing rules, which remain in place despite the lockdown being lifted.
(4) The fourth challenge is the simultaneous onset of dengue fever in Singapore, which has seen some 19,000 cases so far this year.

Read here (South China Morning Post, July 22, 2020)

How Singapore’s Covid-19 contact tracing app drew inspiration from a US high school project

‘Two US students developed a prototype app called kTrace in 2014, at the height of the Ebola epidemic. They won a prize but found no backers. But Singapore’s GovTech agency found it and the students shared code and advice to speed up the development of the city state’s TraceTogether app.’

Read here (South China Morning Post, June 10, 2020)

Half of Singapore’s coronavirus cases show no symptoms, joint head of task force says

‘Based on our experience, for every symptomatic case you would have at least one asymptomatic case,’ Lawrence Wong said. Wong was explaining the city state’s cautious approach to reopening following a two-month lockdown to curb infections.

Read here (South China Morning Post, June 8, 2020)

The mystery of ‘silent spreaders’: An insight to asymptomatic transmission and contact tracing in Singapore’s The Life Church and Missions

‘Investigators resorted to going through the CCTV recordings made at the church that Sunday to search for clues. And they stumbled across something completely unexpected - the woman who'd attended the later service, after the Chinese couple had left, had sat in the seats they had used several hours earlier...

‘Somehow, despite having no symptoms and not feeling ill, the Chinese husband and wife had managed to spread the virus. Maybe they'd had it on their hands and touched the seats, maybe their breath carried the infection and it landed on a surface, it's not clear, but the implications were huge...

‘For Dr Lee, piecing everything together, there was only one possible explanation - that the virus was being passed by people who had it without even realising. This was a revelation that would be relevant the world over because the central message of all public health advice on coronavirus has always been to look out for symptoms in yourself and others.’

Read here (BBC, May 30, 2020)

Testing rate here among highest in world - over 281,000 done so far

‘Over 281,000 tests for Covid-19 have been carried out on 191,000 individuals [in Singapore] so far, the Health Ministry's director of medical services, Associate Professor Kenneth Mak, said yesterday. This comes to around 49,000 tests per million people in the country...’

‘Minister for National Development Lawrence Wong, who co-chairs the task force, pointed out that the Republic has already drastically increased its volume of daily tests [from 2,000 to 8,000 a day]. "We're today already testing at a rate that's among the highest in the world, and we want to do even more beyond this. As we reopen the economy, as we resume activities, testing capability and testing capacity will be a critical enabler for us to do all of these things safely."

Read here (Straits Times, May 20, 2020)

Singapore schools to open in phases from June 2 after Covid-19 circuit breaker: How this will work

‘Students will return to school from June 2 over two phases as part of the easing of the coronavirus circuit breaker measures that are expected to end on June 1. Here are some of the adjustments planned for schools and pre-schools that the Government announced on Tuesday (May 19).’

Read here (Straits Times, May 19, 2020)

China, Denmark and Singapore expand testing

‘China, Singapore and Denmark were among countries to announce substantial expansions of their testing regimes, with the Chinese city of Wuhan, the original centre of the pandemic, saying it planned to test all 11 million residents...

‘Singapore also said it aimed to test all 323,000 migrant workers living in cramped, often unsanitary dormitories that have become a hotbed of infections in recent weeks, accounting for the vast majority of the city-state’s total of 24,671 cases.’

Read here (The Guardian, May 12, 2020)

Lianhua Qingwen (TCM product) approved for sale in Singapore

‘Lianhua Qingwen, a recommended medicine for treating patients with mild COVID-19 symptoms, has been approved as a Chinese proprietary medicine by the Health Sciences Authority in Singapore. The designation means the product can be sold in the country as a medicine, the drug’s manufacturer said.’

Read here (GMP News, May 7, 2020) 

Singaporeans to be given improved reusable masks in third nationwide mask distribution exercise

‘Singaporeans will receive improved reusable masks soon, with the Government embarking on a third mask distribution exercise towards the end of this circuit breaker period. The new cloth masks will have higher protective qualities and also be more comfortable to wear for a long period of time, said Trade and Industry Minister Chan Chun Sing on Wednesday (May 6). Over the last few weeks, the Government has been working with local manufacturers and A*Star to improve on the materials used for the reusable cloth masks.’

Read here (Straits Times, May 6, 2020)

S’pore’s youngest Covid-19 casualty was declared virus-free a week before she died

‘The husband and three children of Ms Salha Mesbee - the youngest patient here to die from the coronavirus - gathered at her bedside in the intensive care unit (ICU) at the Ng Teng Fong General Hospital just hours before her death.

‘Ms Salha, 58, had been declared virus-free nine days earlier, but the infection had already taken a toll on her body, her daughter told The Straits Times. Her vital organs, including her kidneys and liver, were failing and she was in a bad shape.’

Read here (Straits Times, May 5, 2020)

Singapore: New safe distancing guidelines, standards for workplaces after Covid-19 circuit breaker

‘When workplace activities gradually resume after the circuit breaker lifts, the Government will need to put in place new guidelines and standards to ensure that they remain safe from potential Covid-19 outbreaks, National Development Minister Lawrence Wong said on Friday (May 1).Speaking at a virtual press conference, Mr Wong said these guidelines will build upon existing measures to ensure safe distancing in workplaces for workers in essential services, such as wearing masks at work or not having workers socialise among themselves.

‘These guidelines... will also be complemented by a testing regimen as well as some form of technology that can ensure better tracking and monitoring should a confirmed case emerge in the workplace.’

Read here (Straits Times, May 1, 2020)

When will COVID-19 end? Data-driven estimation of end dates (as of April 25, 2020, daily updated)

‘This site provides continuous predictive monitoring of COVID-19 developments as a complement to monitoring confirmed cases. SIR (susceptible-infected-recovered) model is regressed with data from different countries to estimate the pandemic life cycle curves and predict when the pandemic might end in respective countries and the world, with codes from Milan Batista and data from Our World in Data. Given the rapidly changing situations, the predictive monitors are updated daily with the latest data.’

Read here (Singapore University of Technology and Design, April 25, 2020)

Time to wake up to Western media bias

‘Anyone without scales over his eyes and who has not succumbed to cerebral shampooing by the West will have realised by now that large parts of its media are biased, if not outright antagonistic, in their reporting of China.

‘Admittedly, Al Jazeera and CGTN are nowhere near CNN or the BBC in reach and brand value but any fair-minded reader/viewer who has followed their work for a sustained period knows their products are nothing to sniff at.

‘And not to forget: their own English language national or regional media too - whether it be the South China Morning Post, The Star in Malaysia, or The Straits Times and Channel NewsAsia in Singapore. They make no self-glorifying claims to being the gold standard for good journalism but they do try to be objective, fair and balanced.’

Read here (Straits Times, April 25, 2020)

Undaunted by COVID-19 and border controls, Malaysian mums in Singapore send around 3,000kg of breast milk to babies back home

‘Just as the women exhausted all possible channels and nearly lost hope in late March, a Malaysia-based forwarder agreed to help them, first with 20 boxes of frozen breast milk from Singapore to Johor at a small fee of S$10 on Mar 29, and then another 20 boxes to states farther away two days later. The maximum weight for each box is 20kg... The mums were elated, and at the same time anxious about when their turn would come. Luck was on their side when one of them approached Johor’s Stulang assemblyman Andrew Chen Kah Eng for help... Never in history has a large quantity of frozen breast milk been brought over the Causeway in such a manner, the Democratic Action Party politician claimed. Usually, mothers just bring their own breast milk across the border as part of their personal luggage.’

Read here (Channel News Asia, April 21, 2020)

The role of banks in a pandemic

Piyush Gupta, Group CEO, DBS Bank: ‘The scale of the pandemic is such that it cannot be left to governments to find resolution on their own. And the truth is that private sector corporations are some of the biggest actors on the world stage, and have an ability to carry influence across borders. There is also no real conflict between shareholder and stakeholder interests. The issue is one of timeframes. While there may be some trade-offs between maximising shareholder returns and providing societal benefits in the short term, addressing broader issues in society is completely consistent with shareholder interests in the long term.’

Read here (LinkedIn, April 21, 2020)