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Singapore shows zero-COVID countries cost of reopening
Despite mask mandates, strict social curbs and COVID-19 booster doses available for over a month, infections in the Asian city-state's latest outbreak, driven by the Delta variant, took the death toll to 280, up from 55 early in September.
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Passengers from Amsterdam arrive at Changi Airport under Singapore’s expanded Vaccinated Travel Lane (VTL) quarantine-free travel scheme, as the city-state opens its borders to more countries amidst the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, in Singapore October 20, 2021. REUTERS/Edgar Su (Reuters/Reuters)
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ew are left to inoculate in wealthy Singapore after a vigorous campaign achieved a level of coverage envied by many nations battling the coronavirus pandemic, but a record surge in deaths and infections gives warning of risks that may still lie ahead.
Despite mask mandates, strict social curbs and COVID-19 booster doses available for over a month, infections in the Asian city-state's latest outbreak, driven by the Delta variant, took the death toll to 280, up from 55 early in September.
"Singapore may potentially experience two to three epidemic waves as measures are increasingly relaxed," said Alex Cook, a disease modelling expert at the National University of Singapore (NUS).
"Until then, deaths will probably continue to rise, unless many of the residual unvaccinated elders can be vaccinated or more get their booster shot."
Cook expects the current wave to subside as the population builds up immunity, with most infections mild enough for recovery at home.
Singapore is one of several so-called COVID-zero countries that enforced some of the world's strictest measures to hold infections and deaths far below the tallies elsewhere.
That was part of a strategy of waiting until a vast majority of its 5.5 million citizens had been vaccinated before gradually easing curbs and resuming more economic activity.
