When Lee Hsien Loong announced to lift lockdown measures by May 4th, everyone know he was being ridiculous. The date was quickly scrapped with a month’s extension. Unfortunately, June 1st is not anywhere a realistic target as well because the weekly daily counts have not peaked yet.
Singapore today reported Asia’s highest daily count again, at 799 new cases. The coronavirus epicenter now has 14,423 confirmed cases, surpassing infections in Malaysia, South Korea and Japan.
Singapore has been in a lockdown since April 7th, and the daily counts have surged from a few hundreds to nearing a thousand each day.
When a thousand new cases is reported in a day, it will take at least 4 weeks for the number to settle down to the range of hundreds. A further 4 weeks will be needed to shift into the range of tens in daily report. Another 4 weeks to move into single digits. Add on another 4 weeks for the hospitalised cases to recover and discharge, and expanding the testing criteria to ensure the wider community is also clean. As such, there is no chance Singapore can lift lockdown measures within the next 4 months, or by September.
What happens in this 4 months?
With at least 4 months of lockdown expected, most Singaporeans should have exhausted their savings. The government must provide further financial assistance, or the people will literally go hungry or into bankruptcy.
More businesses will close down and many multi-national companies will relocate, as the rest of the world including Malaysia are open for business while Singapore is still stuck in a lockdown.
What happens after the lockdown is lifted?
Going by Lee Hsien Loong’s opportunistic nature, the first thing on the PAP government’s mind will be to claim credit for ending the outbreak. Propaganda will fill the media praising the criminal ministers who caused the chaos in the first place. Lee Hsien Loong will then call for the General Election while pouring praises for his own government’s role in the coronavirus outbreak.
Alex Tan
STR Editor