如何學習與病毒共存

One and a half years since the outbreak of the epidemic, the vaccination rate has greatly reduced the severe illness and mortality caused by the epidemic. The richest country in the world has slowly accepted the coexistence of Covid-19. But how to coexist with the new crown virus, different countries have completely different practices.

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Take Singapore and the United Kingdom as examples. The UK has the highest number of infections and deaths in the world. The number of deaths due to the new crown pneumonia is 120,000, but only 36 in Singapore. In the past, people complained about the slowness of the government's decision-making in dealing with the epidemic, including mandatory wearing of masks or mandatory quarantine measures. However, Singapore soon closed its borders and implemented strict tracking and inspection measures. Now the results of these two countries can be used as textbooks for other countries.

The Singapore government has now given up the possibility of [zero confirmed] and no longer counts the number of confirmed cases every day, but instead tracks the severity of confirmed patients. For example, how many serious patients are counted every day, how many people are in the intensive care unit, how many people need respirators, and so on. Their purpose is to hope that the new crown pneumonia will eventually become a less serious infectious disease, like flu or measles.

British Prime Minister Johnson also issued a similar decision, thinking that the British should learn a new daily life that coexists with the virus. Because more than 66% of adults across the country have received two doses of the vaccine, they no longer treat COVID-19 as a serious infectious disease. Therefore, the UK has also lifted all bans related to the epidemic, including restrictions on social distancing and wearing masks. Although more than 50,000 people are diagnosed in the UK a day.

The British Prime Minister’s decision caused a backlash from many scientists. Because there are still many people in the UK who have not been vaccinated, their lives are at risk. However, it is very dangerous to immediately lift all the restrictions in the past.

Singapore has a different approach. They intend to take a middle route, continue to allow citizens to administer vaccines, increase the rate of vaccine administration, and adopt a middle route of loose and continuous restrictions. At present, about 40% of Singaporeans have the second dose of vaccine, and in early August it reached the rate of 3/4 of the people in the country. However, their unblocking policy will be gradually carried out instead of completely unblocking it all at once.

What Singapore has marveled at other countries in the past is their rigorous infection tracking system. Using wireless bluetooth technology and an App, everyone in Singapore can track whether they have been in close contact with the infected person, so that the infected person can be completely isolated.

Many British scientists were surprised by the government's bold decision and felt that the government should learn from Singapore instead of betting on vaccine coverage.