Circuit breaker: Singapore sees positive results but can't let up

Singapore is already seeing some positive results from its tight circuit breaker measures but the republic cannot ease off now, according to its National Development Minister Lawrence Wong.

“We have to make this strong push to decisively break the transmission chain,” said Wong, who is also the Co-chair of the Multi-Ministry Taskforce on COVID-19, at a press conference here today.

The one-month circuit breaker to stem the spread of COVID-19 on the island-city, which kicked in on April 7, entered its third week this week.

Meanwhile, Minister of Health, who also Co-chaired the task force, Gan Kim Yong said the number of new cases in the community had decreased from an average of 39 cases per day in the week before to an average of 29 per day the past week.

“What is particularly worrying is that the number of unlinked cases in the community have not fallen, averaging about 20 cases a day,” he revealed.

Earlier, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced that the circuit breaker scheduled to end on May 4, would be extended for four more weeks until June 1, 2020.

On April 20, Singapore reported the largest single daily spike of new cases at 1,426 (cases), of which 37 per cent were pending contact tracing.

As at 12 noon today, Singapore had confirmed an additional 1,111 cases of COVID-19 infection in the republic, bringing the tally to 9,152 incidents.

Lee said the number of unlinked cases had not gone down and “this suggests there is a larger, hidden reservoir of cases in the community, that is the source of these unlinked cases, which we have not detected.”

The extended circuit breaker was also aimed at ensuring that if any leakage occurred from the dorm clusters to the wider community, it could detect and contain it early, and prevent new clusters from forming and bursting out of control.

-- BERNAMA