Singapore’s coronavirus response has swung dramatically from success story to cautionary tale
Singapore’s low-wage foreign laborers are falling ill with the coronavirus in their thousands after being quarantined en masse, a development that experts say could put unprecedented strain on the wealthy city-state’s healthcare services as its Covid-19 case numbers surge.
What began as a success story for Singapore owing to its early containment of the disease through quarantines and contact tracing has since turned into a cautionary tale on the public health risks of overlooking swathes of marginalized workers that have now become the Achilles’ heel of the city-state’s coronavirus response.
Not unlike the two economic realities inhabited by Singapore’s transient workers and its citizens and permanent residents, the outbreak itself has been likened to a tale of two infections. When a record 1,426 new cases were reported on April 20, only 16 cases involved Singaporeans and residents with the vast majority of the infections occurring in foreign worker dormitories.
“Singapore is running two epidemic curves at the moment, there’s outside the dorms and inside the dorms,” said Dale Fisher, a senior infectious diseases consultant at the National University Hospital. “One is skyrocketing up just like New York and Italy did, and the other one is plateauing down in low double-figures.”
Singapore’s low-wage foreign laborers are falling ill with the coronavirus in their thousands after being quarantined en masse, a development that experts say could put unprecedented strain on the wealthy city-state’s healthcare services as its Covid-19 case numbers surge.
What began as a success story for Singapore owing to its early containment of the disease through quarantines and contact tracing has since turned into a cautionary tale on the public health risks of overlooking swathes of marginalized workers that have now become the Achilles’ heel of the city-state’s coronavirus response.
Not unlike the two economic realities inhabited by Singapore’s transient workers and its citizens and permanent residents, the outbreak itself has been likened to a tale of two infections. When a record 1,426 new cases were reported on April 20, only 16 cases involved Singaporeans and residents with the vast majority of the infections occurring in foreign worker dormitories.
“Singapore is running two epidemic curves at the moment, there’s outside the dorms and inside the dorms,” said Dale Fisher, a senior infectious diseases consultant at the National University Hospital. “One is skyrocketing up just like New York and Italy did, and the other one is plateauing down in low double-figures.”
Read the full story at Asia Times.
Nile Bowie is a journalist and correspondent with the Asia Times covering current affairs in Singapore and Malaysia. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com.
