How Singapore plans to tame Covid-19

In my home country of New Zealand, Prime Minister Jacinda Adern will update the nation this week on the border controls of ‘Fortress New Zealand’.?Expectations of a major policy shift from the "Eliminate-Covid" model are not high.?As “Covid is raging” overseas, in the words of her Minister Chris Hipkins, the virus needs to be firmly locked out. Yet while this single-minded strategy was successful and widely endorsed by the public in 2020, shouldn’t NZ be exploring a more diversified and calibrated response eighteen months into the pandemic?

Concerns are rising about the longer-term economic and social impact of New Zealand’s border policy in response to Covid-19, perhaps the most restrictive globally.?High-spending international tourists and students are sorely missed, and the lack of foreign seasonal and specialized workers is disrupting the primary and tech sectors.?At a macro-economic level, a tight labour market is adding further inflationary pressure on household spending already suffering from raw material and transport cost spikes.?Economists are projecting interest rate hikes to cool the economy.?And what about the thousands of New Zealanders abroad suffering the mental stress of being locked out of their home country??Many expats in Singapore have contacted the NZ Chamber to voice their frustrations at missing out on jobs, schooling for kids and saying last farewells to ailing relatives.?According to Megan Main, Head of Managed Isolation & Quarantine (MiQ), there is “no silver bullet”.?But is that true?

The answer may lie in Singapore. It is taking a different aim, calculating to tame the virus through an ambitious plan and re-open safely with speed.?It was in June, after months of global and local healthcare data, that the country’s Covid-19 playbook was significantly advanced. The “Covid-19 multi-ministry task force” – co-chaired by Trade and Industry Minister Gan Kim Yong, Finance Minister Lawrence Wong and Health Minister Ong Ye Kung – acknowledged that Covid-19 may never go away.?But they also reassured that it will be possible to live normally with it in our midst.?The updated ambition was to contain the worst consequences of Covid-19, rather than attempting the impossible task of eliminating it.?The healthcare KPI would move from tracking total cases to tracking only serious ones.

For those who may not be aware, the South-East-Asian nation is widely applauded as a “safe country” for its handling of the pandemic.?Singapore's fatalities number in the low 40s (compared to NZ’s 28 and Australia’s 918), and the hospital system has never been in danger of collapse.?This feat has been achieved by adopting the successful ”Eliminate-Covid” playbook, just like NZ.?The border has been tightly controlled, with 30,000 hotel rooms dedicated to Quarantine facilities (exceeding NZ’s capacity tenfold).?There have been multiple and phased lockdowns.?Testing is wide-spread, with aggressive ring-fencing of clusters.?Medical care is amongst the best globally.?A contact tracing app or the carrying a token is a must when entering any building, thus containing potential clusters.?And massive government spending has sustained those sectors hardest hit.?As it recovers from the lows of 2020, Singapore’s GDP could soar this year to almost 6%.

There are four essential pillars that provide the foundations of the revised model.

1. Vaccination

Singapore has one the fastest vaccination rollouts globally.?70% of the population has completed the full vaccination regime as of 10 August.?The government was fast to procure supplies, and the population has been equal to the task of getting their shots.?Thanks to an effective communications plan (https://www.gov.sg/features/covid-19-vaccination), vaccines are accepted as being critical to reducing the risk of infection as well as transmission.?The process has been flawlessly executed through an online booking system.?Today, walk-in appointments were even announced for 37 centres.

As Singapore opens up, the government will implement differentiated social rules based on people’s vaccination status.?Dine-in at food and beverage establishments will be allowed for groups of up to five people if all are fully vaccinated or have a negative Covid test in the last 24 hours.?And from Aug. 20, fully vaccinated travelers from selected countries — including Australia, Canada, Germany and South Korea — can serve a mandatory quarantine at their homes.?This will certainly motivate the undecided to get jabbed. The taskforce expects further relaxing of measures when 80% of the population is fully vaccinated.?This seems achievable by early September, based on the current run-rate of around 60,000 vaccinations per day.

2. Easier Testing

Testing of Covid-19 in the community will be made faster and easier.?Domestically, testing will shift to antigen rapid tests, while the rigorous polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test will remain in place at the borders. The antigen rapid tests, including self-tests, will be used for events, social activities and overseas trips. They have already been rolled out to polyclinics, private clinics, employers, premises owners and pharmacies. The government is also working on breathalysers that take one to two minutes to produce results and do not involve swabbing.

3. Treatments will improve

There is trust in medical science to continuing providing ever improved treatments for Covid-19. Today, there is already a range of effective treatments in Singapore’s excellent hospitals.?Eighteen months after the pandemic started, there are many therapeutic agents that are effective in treating the critically ill, quickening recovery, and reducing disease progression, severity and mortality. The Ministry of Health tracks these developments closely, ensuring an adequate supplies of these drugs, while medical researchers actively participate in the development of new treatments.

4. Social responsibility remains critical

At the end, there is always the human factor: accepting that Covid-19 will be endemic and collectively doing our part. Good personal hygiene means a lower likelihood of infection. Transmission will also be reduced through being considerate to one another: staying away from crowds, work or school when we feel unwell. The concept of shouldering the burden together, at the heart of this young nation of only 56 years, is seen as critical for staying safe, and gives the government confidence that the goal can be achieved.

Minister Gan remarked this past week that “we’re now in a stronger position to resume with our re-opening journey, but in a cautious and calibrated way.”?It’s a bold plan, meticulously studied, being executed with laser-sharp precision.?It’s also about as close to the proverbial “silver bullet” as New Zealand (and other countries’) policy makers could wish for.?Definitely worth a closer look.