While Singaporeans only know about shortage of face masks and tissue paper, they did not know truth and honesty are similarly in shortage in Singapore as well.
Flight numbers, uncontactable suspect cases, movements of infected, profiles of the critically ill have all been taken out from the official data since Singapore started reporting in January.
These vital information could have saved numerous with early detection and isolation for suspect cases, but the PAP government is hiding them because they value their reputation about human lives.
Trade Minister Chan Chun Sing could not even come clean with the number of face masks and test kits in Singapore. When States Times Review reported a shortage of face masks, his response is a POFMA order warranting 2 years’ jail and a S$100,000 fine.
How many hospital beds, intensive care units and quarantine places are there? Nobody knows. When GP clinics reported they ran out of medical supplies in February, the government issued them two weeks of supply. Thereafter, it became a media blackout.
The statistics of the infected are also looking overtly suspicious. How can there be a double digit jump each day right after Singapore broke the 100th case mark? A few days before Singapore was seeing zero cases, and all the sudden it jumped to 14 a day.
Without accurate data and statistics, medical specialists, epidemiologists and even the common man in the street does not know how to react. How do we know schools do not need to be shut down, or if the election should be held if the figures we get are outdated and grossly misrepresented?
If Minister Lee Hsien Loong had come clean and declare there is a good 6 months’ worth of supply, would there be panic buying? Would there be a need for businesses to jack up prices of face masks, if the number of face masks in the national stockpile is announced. Behaviours like panic-buying is merely triggered by the lack of transparency and public confidence, and not xia suay mindsets as Minister Chan Chun Sing claimed.
Alex Tan
STR Editor