4/14/2020

Covid19 - Is community spread threatening Singapore?

Community spread of this virus is starting to grow in Singapore. The above map is from theindependent.sg. Just before April Fool Day, things were still manageable with the spread limited and community spread still traceable. With the current state of affair, the task of contact tracing is huge, extremely tenuous to think the team could trace so many people in so many places. And quarantine them is another mammoth problem.

There were 233 new cases on 12 April, 167 with no links and nearly 30 clusters all over the island. And on 13 April a new record was hit, 386 cases with 94 unlinked cases, ie community spread. How did we get here, from gold standard to becoming the epicentre in Southeast Asia. If the rate of infection continues to grow, we will be there. At this point, with such numbers, containment is not going to be easy, even difficult. Singapore is likely to graduate from containment to mitigation.

There is this fear that the foreign workers could pass the virus to their girlfriends and cause a new front in the homes of Singaporeans. Contrary, the foreign workers could be infected by their girlfriends and brought the virus to their dormitories, to Mustafa Centre. Strangely, the infection rate of domestic maids is very low. Is it because they were not tested or few were infected?

How did Singapore, the envy of the rest of the world just a couple of weeks ago, deteriorated to this sorry state of affair? No, things still under control, the spread is not serious?

What do you think?

PS.  A qualification, we are not the epicentre yet. Hope the 386 daily number will not continue. If this number grows, we will get there in a matter of time. The bigger the number, the harder to trace, the easy to loose control and things will just explode.

22 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mustaffa Centre is where Most Bangladeshi, Indian and even many Singaporeans of All Races like to patronize.
lt could be the Source of the Outbreaks that happened at the Many Dormitories throughout the lsland. lt is THE PLACE WHERE MOST FOREIGNER WORKERS DO MOST OF THEIR SHOPPINGS AND THE PLACE WHERE THEY GATHER TO SOCIALIZE WITH THEIR FELLOW-COUNTRYMEN DURING THEIR FREE TIME.
MUSTAFFA WAS IN-EXPLICABLY NOT CLOSED WHEN INFECTION FIRST HAPPENED THERE, IT WAS MORE BAFFLING WHEN THE AUTHORITY DID NOT CLOSE IT IMMEDIATELY, WHEN INFECTIONS HAPPENED THE SECOND TIME.
THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN TO MUSTAFFA CENTRE KNOW THAT THRRE ARE FEW ENTRANCE/EXIT IN AT THE BUILDINGS.
IT IS SEALED IF THE DOORS ARE CLOSED. A DISASTER IN CASE OF FIRE, BUILDING COLLAPSE AND AS IN THE CASE DISEASE, IT IS A RECIPE FOR DISASTER.
WHY
WAS MUSTAFFA CENTRE NOT CLOSED ON BOTH OCCASSIONS WHEN XOVID-19 WERE CONFIRMED TO HAVE TAKEN PLACE THERE ??

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

Mustafa Centre is identified as where foreign workers caught their virus. But the virus must have been brought by someone into the Centre. This someone must have caught it somewhere before bringing it to the Centre.

Anonymous said...

// How did we get here, from gold standard to becoming the epicentre in Southeast Asia. //

Do you think this happened because PAP (Part-timers Action Party) is a party of part-timers?

Anonymous said...

/ How did we get here, from gold standard to becoming the epicentre in Southeast Asia. //


" Errrrrrr "
- Ho Ching

Anonymous said...

" How did Singapore, the envy of the rest of the world just a couple of weeks ago, deteriorated to this sorry state of affair? "

----> Is it because someboLee forgot to test the foreign workers?


Did SomeboLee say Singapore can accomodate 10 million population?

---> Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha


Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

A qualification, we are not the epicentre yet. Hope the 386 daily number will not continue. If this number grows, we will get there in a matter of time. The bigger the number, the harder to trace, the easy to loose control and things will just explode.

Anonymous said...

PAP Millionaire Lawrence Wong
---> Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha

PAP Millionaire Gan Kim Yong
---> Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha

70% Singaporeans who voted PAP
---> Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha

Anonymous said...

Somebolee could have been infected in public transport and brought it to the Mustaffa Centre.
Logical ?

Anonymous said...

It is amazing that no one in authority thought it important to look at foreign workers' dormitories when Mustafa Centre was pinpointed as a source of infection. Now it may be too late and much more difficult to try to cover up the spread. This is probably the worst place to try contact tracing.

Added to that, so many voices had also warned of the packed MRT trains being another potential avenue of mass spreading. But that did not ring a bell and may have been taken as just normal complaints from disgruntled peasants, to be brushed aside as kpkb stuff. Sometimes, ivory tower residents are far from understanding what is happening on the ground.

I like to bring back this old story as a resident living in the North East (Hougang) area since childhood. I think most people who lived there remember the notorious morning traffic jams along Upper Serangoon Road that plague residents since the 1960s. Going to school and work was a nightmare, with jams a mile long on most days, and being late for school or office was a normal occurrence. Years of complaints landed on deaf years

When Low Thia Khiang won Hougang in early 1991, ivory tower residents knew that there were issues that needed to be looked into. After years of denying that the traffic jams were serious, with continued outcry by residents to the transport authority, the then Minister of Transport, took a trip on a public bus during morning traffic and had to admit it was really bad.

This was also during the time when they were just contemplating construction of the North East MRT line, not really a consideration in relation to the jam, but more a political move to cater to those residents in PAP wards further North. In fact Hougang constituency proper was even denied a station in the plans. Woodleigh, then a graveyard, had a station long before the cemeteries were removed, to cater to the unseen and unmentionable, until few years ago.


Anonymous said...

“Even from my sickbed, even if you are going to lower me to the grave and I feel that something is going wrong, I will get up.”
- Lee Kuan Yew

Since Lee Kuan Yew has not risen up from the dead.
There is nothing wrong with Singapore.

Everything is just fine.
Keep voting PAP.

Anonymous said...

On the high pay of cabinet ministers and senior civil servants:

“You know, the cure for all this talk is really a good dose of incompetent government. You get that alternative and you’ll never put Singapore together again: Humpty Dumpty cannot be put together again... and your asset values will be in peril, your security will be at risk and our women will become maids in other people’s countries, foreign workers.”
- Lee Kuan Yew

We must further increase the salary of all PAP Ministers.
So that they will work hard to solve our problems.

Under the current crisis, we need to double the salaries of all PAP Ministers.
Because they have no sense of shame.

---> Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha

Anonymous said...

This part I agree. They are not paid enough, so must increase salary to make the virus disappear. Poor chaps, all underpaid, morale must be very low.

Anonymous said...

"Is community spreading threatening Singapore?"

As long as PAP is not threatened, i.e. voted out, Singapore is not threatened by any thing. How can a tiny invisible virus threaten PAP?

You forgot? PAP is bigger than Singapore, you know?

Anonymous said...

@ 4.25pm
"PAP is bigger than Singapore"

.... until one PAP Minister gets the virus

Anonymous said...

Admit it.
Be honest now.

We are all hoping at least one PAP Minister will get the virus ... correct?

Anonymous said...

Singapore will be OK. Do not worry. Your HDB flats will be an asset for your old age. Your landed properties will be worth millions. Your wives and daughters will not be maids in other countries. WHY???? Because your efficient PAP government will solve all your problems. They are the highest paid government in the world so they must be the best problem solvers.

So, Singaporeans, please sleep easy and do NOT worry.

Anonymous said...

@ 6.03pm

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...

Admit it.
Be honest now.

We are all hoping at least one PAP Minister will get the virus ... correct?
April 14, 2020 5:49 pm

Maybe oredy kena but keep quiet.

Virgo 49 said...

Wow latest new cases +334

Total cases; 3252

Last time said No need wear masks.

Now Compulsory wear masks.

One day God another Day Devil.

Just said latest scientific reports.

Sure or not? Common sense will tell you truth or not?

Not prepare, said not prepare..

Not enough masks, said NOT enough masks.

Their slogan: Today's monies already in to you.

Tomorrow, we gonna take back from you.

More silly offences kena in civvy streets and charged than the Military Camps.

Too close kena charged. No wear masks kena charged. Cannot go in markets and public transport.

All this due to their blunders of importing 2.3Milions extra human beans.

See who the lucky ones to be drawn lots to be their Lords happily in Heavens.

Anonymous said...

The Truth About COVID-19 Virus - It Does Not Discriminate Betwen High or Low, Old or Young, Powerful or Weak!

Talking about ministers getting infected, I dare not think they can be immuned just because they are holding the title "Minister". I can even bet that:

1. At least two ministers have already got Coronated!

2. At least 3 MPs have been COVIDed already!

3. Many top civil serpents are quietly self-isolating themselves, nursing their health.

But they are asymptomatic and still think that the COVID-19 pneumonia-causing corrosive coronation-virus cannot touch them at all?

This is the beauty of this Covid-19 corrosive coronation-virus! Ironically,

1. It is so novel that they whole world readily, without thinking, refer to it initially as the novel corona-virus.

2. It is so majestic that All the clownish medical doctors, researchers and laboratory-obssessed scientists hastened to place a crown on its head and callrd it "Corona"!

3. It is so unassuming that all the brilliant brains eagerly rushed in to outsmart it, but in the end got outsmarted by it. More so, glaringly displayed for at least 70 days, on a silly island alternatively known as Sillypore, Sickapore, Sinkingland or Sinkieland.

4. It is so deceptive that so many idiots never hesitated to think that it only kills the old, weak and the sickly. One biggest educated idiot in the world, ironically put in-charge of education, and is also fully responsible for the lives and safety of all the thousands of students, even had the audacity to justify not closing down the schools earlier because young children are more "resilient"! The fact remains that during SARS in 2003, schools were completely closed down just 16 days after the very first case was confirmed! Yet many idiots repeatedly, openly and unabashedly claimed to have learnt from the SARS' experience! Really incredible!

5. It is such a convenient scapegoat that nobody had ever stopped to think why the statistics keep projecting so many of those who have unfortunately died of "complications" arising from the COVID-19 virus infection, had to die. Has anyone even bother to pause and ask the question:

"If I were a doctor having forced to play God to save lives (who lives and who dies rest in my hands because of the absence of a cure, because of limited resources, and because of pressure of time and space) who do I save and who do I let go to deteriorate and finally die? All I have to justify to their families and to the world at large is to coin a useful term called "COMPLICATIONS" and use this magical word to certify the cause of their death?

6. It is pronounced the "murderer" so easily and conveniently. Who had let the "complications" set in and progressed to its obvious resulting end? Think widely and deeply.

7. Last but not least, it is the natural equaliser, the true Lady of Justice, in a highly unjust world run and administered by fallible, imperfect creatures who frequently displayed the notion that they are infallible and invincible; that they are the only ones who create and uphold the laws, including natural laws; that they are sometimes above the law; that they could easily sue you for libel or charge you with contempt at their pleasure?

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

Singapore hits another record with 447 cases in a day. This is more than the average 10% rate that is hitting other countries with countries testing more getting higher percentage.

The lying Americans are still reporting less than 5% average cases by under reporting and under testing. The Americans should just stop all their tests and report zero increases to show how good they are in handling this pandemic.

Singapore is now just like any country with new cases surging daily and could become the worse hit country in SE Asia. With about 300,000 foreign workers mixing freely before detected, this is going to spread like wildfire and 20% infection rate among them would be 60,000 cases. Singapore would then join the luminaries in the top 20 countries affected by this virus.

Anonymous said...

It does not look good for Singapore. The two most glaring overlooked sources of spreading now points to the dormitories and the public transport system, the MRT and buses. The sad thing is, this danger had been highlighted to no end by many, but not taken seriously by those that had the authority to do what was necessary. Now, the economic side that was perhaps the reason for the inaction, is also in peril.

Another month of closure may perhaps work to break the circuit, but the cost will be heavy. Massive job losses will be one. That alone will bring about a long string of trickle down effects, nothing good to be honest.

We just have to prepare for the worst and hope for the best. Everyone is on this boat together. No other choice!