Singapore to stop recording Covid cases and treat it ‘like the flu’

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• Singapore wants to stop recording daily Covid cases in an attempt to get life back to normal by treating the coronavirus “like the flu”.
• The blueprint would ditch lockdowns, allow quarantine-free travels and large gatherings.
• Proponents of the road map claim the “zero transmission” is almost impossible to maintain as new variants spread, but living with Covid can be done.

Singapore plans to stop recording daily Covid case figures in a bid to return to normal life by treating the coronavirus “like the flu”.

By implementing ‘draconian’ rules to control the infection rate, the Asian country has recorded just 36 deaths since the pandemic started. Now, officials plan to throw away measures such as counting daily infection numbers.

Three leading members of Singapore’s Covid-19 task force created a plan to end tough restrictions the nation is following for 18 months. The strategy aims to restore quarantine-free travel and public gatherings.

The plan is to allow its citizens to “get on with their lives” by ditching tough rules and rather controlling the infection by other means, such as mass vaccination and better treatments.

“Instead of monitoring Covid-19 infection numbers every day, we will focus on the outcomes,” the trade, finance and health ministers wrote in a joint op-ed in the Straits Times.

“How many fall very sick, how many in the intensive care unit, how many need to be intubated for oxygen, and so on. This is like how we now monitor influenza.

“We can’t eradicate it, but we can turn the pandemic into something much less threatening, like influenza, hand, foot and mouth disease, or chickenpox, and get on with our lives.”

Singapore officials aim to give at least two-thirds of the population their first dose of vaccine early this month, with the same number fully vaccinated by the start of next month.

The ministers added: “Early evidence suggests that with vaccination, we can tame Covid-19. 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.”

Complete details of the blueprint have yet to be revealed publicly, but officials suggested measures such as breathalyzer-style tests, more therapeutic treatments and stronger personal responsibility.

Singapore’s plan could be an indication that the world will start to live with Covid after over a year of restrictions.

However, experts have warned that the pandemic isn’t yet over and that people who are not vaccinated are Covid “variant factories” who could prolong the pandemic and lead to more restrictions.

Not to mention the rise of anti-vax sentiments as many people refuse to get the Covid vaccine.

Source: The Sun