Singapore looks to relax restrictions and learn to live with Covid-19
Singapore’s Health Minister Ong Ye Kung said last week the government was preparing to initiate a three-step plan and slowly reopen the economy.
CAPE TOWN, July 5 (ANA) – Despite the outbreak of the highly contagious Delta variant of Covid-19 which forced many countries including Singapore to re-introduce lockdowns, officials are looking to relax measures and transition to a “new normal” as early as next week.
According to Singapore-based publication The Straits Times, Health Minister Ong Ye Kung said last Thursday his government was preparing to initiate a three-step plan and slowly reopen the economy.
Experts recommend that at least 80% of the population would need to be vaccinated in order to achieve herd immunity for Covid-19, but there is currently no vaccine for children aged under 12-years who make up close to 10% of the population.
Two-thirds of Singapore’s population have received at least one dose of the vaccination, while one in four people over the age of 70 have not been vaccinated.
“Hopefully we can mark (the milestone) with the National Day Parade as another step of opening, before we progress to the endemic Covid-19 stage,” said Ong.
The National Day Parade is held annually on August 9 to celebrate Singapore’s independence from Malaysia in 1965.
“You want the transition to be a step-by-step one, where you progressively move towards it, as opposed to a sudden change,” Ong said.
He said Singapore was currently in the transition phase while more of the population got vaccinated, which could take another month or two.
CNN reported that the country’s roadmap proposed by its Covid-19 task force would stop the counting of cases and move away from lockdowns, allow mass gatherings and return to quarantine-free travel.
Covid-19 testing and surveillance will still be conducted through faster and easier methods than existing ones.
Ong told The Straits Times that the key to the new model would be a lighter approach to the pandemic, a higher vaccination rate and more treatments becoming available.
“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,” said Ong.
“We can turn the pandemic into something much less threatening, like influenza, hand, foot and mouth disease, or chickenpox, and get on with our lives.”
– African News Agency (ANA), Editing by Stella Mapenzauswa