#15,202
Singapore, which up until a week or so ago appeared to have defied the odds by keeping their society relatively open and COVID-19 at bay, suddenly finds themselves dealing with rapidly increasing cases counts.
Four days ago, in Singapore Orders Mandatory Mask Wearing As Cases Soar, we looked at their recent imposition of school closings, and mandatory mask wearing in public. Over the previous 3 days, Singapore had reported 953 cases, raising their case count to just over 3,250.Over the past week Singapore has reported 3,800 cases, which raises their case count from 2,299 on the 11th of April to just under 6,000 today (n=5,993).
Today their MOH reports their biggest one-day jump in cases (see 942 New Cases of COVID-19 Infection), although the vast majority are among foreign workers residing in dormitories, not from the general public.
18TH APR 2020
As of 18 April 2020, 12pm, the Ministry of Health (MOH) has preliminarily confirmed an additional 942 cases of COVID-19 infection in Singapore, the vast majority of whom are Work Permit holders residing in foreign worker dormitories.
2. The number of local cases has continued to decline, with 14 Singaporeans/ Permanent Residents among the cases today.
3. We are still working through the details of the cases, and further updates will be shared via the MOH press release that will be issued tonight.
From the MOH's report posted yesterday (17th - 25 More Cases Discharged, 623 New Cases of COVID-19 Infection Confirmed).
The circuit breaker measures appear to have helped, but we still have to monitor carefully the numbers over the next few days. We are particularly concerned that it is increasingly difficult to link the new cases and identify the source of infection. In fact, the number of unlinked cases in the community has increased slightly, from an average of 19 cases per day in the week before, to an average of 22 per day in the past week. We have an ongoing surveillance programme, where a small sample of patients at our primary care facilities are tested for COVID-19 infections. We have picked up some cases through these tests, which is an indication of undetected cases in the community.
For the first 3 months, Singapore - along with Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan - appeared to have COVID-19 pretty well under control. In fact, Singapore was lauded as having done so by their excellent public health work (testing, contact tracing, quarantine), rather than from more draconian lockdown measures we've seen imposee by other countries.
While Hong Kong (n=1,024) and Taiwan (n=398) still maintain enviably low case counts, Japan (pop. 126 million) has recently seen a surge (n=9,787) in cases, and yesterday expanded their state of emergency to cover the entire country.But with a population of less than 6 million, Singapore now reports 13 times more cases per capita than Japan, and a roughly 60 times greater incidence than Taiwan. Singapore's recently imposed circuit breakers have only been in effect for a week, and may need a couple of weeks before they begin to have a major impact.
