Day 16 of Singapore's COVID-19 Circuit Breaker - Time Extension

It is day 16 of Singapore's COVID-19 circuit breaker. Yesterday, the Prime Minister of Singapore addressed the nation again and extended the circuit breaker period by another 4 weeks. You can watch his full address on YouTube if you are keen.

Source of video

In addition to the extension, the government also announced further measures to reduce human traffic in order to minimize contact. As a result, more workplaces are required to be closed and the list of essential services is shortened.

Here is a list of businesses impacted due to tightening of measures,

Source

Notably, at least on Facebook and popular online forums, barbers and hairdressers will no longer be able to operate. One video was circulated to me and I tried to create a GIF but had problem embedding it in the post. Anyway, here is a screenshot.

Another notable business that will cease operation is bubble tea shops. For those who do not know, bubble tea is a popular beverage in Singapore. It is basically milk tea with round toppings made with starch.

Not surprising, there are also long queues at bubble tea outlets as a result of this.

Generally, I think Singaporeans are too pampered. We are fortunate to be in a relatively affluent country with government which takes care of many aspects of our lives. Instead of hunkering down and stay at home, many of us are taking unnecessary risks for non-essential goods and services during a pandemic.

I think most of readers are not Singaporeans. Do share your thoughts on what you think about how Singaporeans are behaving in times of crisis.

---

Updates on COVID-19 numbers

In the past 3 days (today inclusive), Singapore saw case count surges of over 1,000 on a daily basis.

Source

While the numbers look frightening, most of them are actually foreign workers living in dormitories. Because of how densely populated these living spaces are, I actually view each of these dorms as something similar to the Diamond Princess cruise. There are close to 300,000 of foreign workers in these affected dorms.

If we draw statistics from Diamond Princess, there might be up to 60,000 infected in the end. The Singapore government is doing active testing on all these affected workers, so there will be many cases emerging but most of them will be asymptomatic or with mild symptoms since these workers are all relatively young and fit.

Let's see how things progress. Meanwhile, stay safe and stay healthy everyone.

---

This article is first posted on the Hive blockchain, an immutable and censorship-resistant content platform. Follow me on Hive if you want to see my latest articles.