Singapores Radical New Plan to Live with Covid

Singapore, a country that has been one of the world’s most successful at combating Covid-19 has announced it will soon fundamentally change how it manages the pandemic.
The city-state of Singapore has stated Covid-19 will be treated like other endemic diseases, such as flu.
There will be no goals of zero transmission; quarantine will be dumped for travelers & close contact of cases will not have to isolate. It also plans to no longer announce daily case numbers.
Senior Singaporean ministers have said it is the “new normal” of “living with Covid-19”.
“The bad news is that Covid-19 may never go away. The good news is that it is possible to live normally with it in our midst,” wrote Singapore’s trade Minister Gan Kim Yong, finance minister Lawrence Wong & health minister Ong Ye Kung said in an editorial in the Straits Times.
“It means that the virus will continue to mutate & thereby survive in our community.”
Singapore never got to zero & now doesn't want to. Like most countries, Singapore had an initial peak of cases last year, topping out at 600 cases a day in mid-April. Following a smaller wave in August, Covid-19 hasn’t flared up since.
However, the nation of 5.7M, slightly larger than Sydney, has had a steady undercurrent of around 20~30 cases every day. The nation has recorded 35 deaths in total.
Singapore has strict border controls in place with most countries including tests on arrival, hotel quarantine & stay-at-home orders.
But all that would be eventually done away with under the plan put out by ministers Kung, Yong & Wong who make up Singapore’s Covid-19 multi-ministry task force.
“Every year, many people catch the flu. The overwhelming majority recover without needing to be hospitalized & with little or no medication. But a minority, especially the elderly & those with comorbidities, can get very ill & some die.
“We can’t eradicate it, but we can turn the pandemic into something much less threatening, like influenza or chickenpox & get on with our lives,” the trio said.
Vaccination first, then reduce restrictions
Vaccination was key. The road map out of the current measures couldn’t begin until more people had been jabbed.
Singapore is set to have given two-thirds of its residents at least one jab within weeks & to have two thirds fully vaccinated by early August.
Singapore has recorded some fully vaccinated locals getting Covid-19, but none of them have had serious symptoms.
Singapore’s ‘new covid normal’
The ministers said Covid-19 could be “tamed” if not vanquished.
They laid out what they called “a new normal”.
“In time, the airport, seaport, office buildings, malls, hospitals & educational institutions can use these kits to screen staff & visitors.”
People with covid would recover at home because symptoms will mostly be mild & close contacts would be vaccinated.
Because most cases will be less of an issue, the need for contact tracing & quarantining will be low.
A big change would be to no longer report daily case numbers.
“Instead of monitoring Covid-19 infection numbers every day, we will focus on the outcomes: how many fall sick, how many in the intensive care unit, how many need to be intubated for oxygen & so on.
“This is like how we now monitor influenza.”
The ministers wrote in the Straits Times that this would be a way for Singapore to navigate its way out of Covid-19, resume major events & travel internationally.
The Singaporean ministers said the country was by no means at a stage where the post-covid plan could commence. For the time being, current restrictions would have to remain in place.
Indeed, the country has just toughened entry to people from New South Wales due to the current Sydney outbreak.
But “a road map to transit to a new normal” was coming together.
“History has shown that every pandemic will run its course”.