The war on Covid-19 in Singapore has been ramped up to the nines.
This was even before a total of 1,426 new Covid-19 cases were announced in one day on April 20, 2020, underscoring just how rampant the spread of the virus has become among the foreign workers community within weeks.
At the same time, there has been a visible slowing down of the spread of the virus among the general population, inadvertently creating the effect of highlighting the contrast of two diverging sets of numbers that are reported daily.
From April 18 to 20, the Ministry of Health has been focusing on how it presents those figures:
April 18
New cases: 942
Singaporeans/ PRs: 14
April 19
New cases: 596
Singaporeans/ PRs: 25
April 20
New cases: 1,426 cases
Singaporeans/ PRs: 16
This has become an unconscious way of assessing the updates by focusing on the remaining numbers, a majority of which are Work Permit holders, a.k.a. foreign workers in dormitories.
Not a new trend
However, this trend did not just emerge recently.
It was recognised as early as April 7, when 30 out of the 106 new Covid-19 cases announced that day were Singaporeans.
This was at a time when the total number of cases per day was still in the low hundreds and there was an impression that the virus was under control.
This was also when new Covid-19 cases involving Singaporeans returning from overseas became negligible, indicating that community spread was still happening, but not high.
This pattern continued to hold steady: New Covid-19 cases involving Singaporeans hovered around the 30-plus-a-day range for four straight days from April 7 to 10.
On April 11, cases involving Singaporeans fell to just 22 out of 191.
on April 12, cases involving Singaporeans declined even lower to 16 out of 233.
From April 13 onward, the total number of cases per day shot up steadily from 386 that day to 623 by April 17 -- and the divergence became much clearer.
What happens next?
As the current figures show, the circuit breaker measures are working as they should among the general population.
An indication of any improvement moving forward comes from the consistent closing of the gap between Singaporeans and foreign workers cases, as the overall total Covid-19 infection numbers ought to continue to trend downwards.
As a rule of thumb, if it took two weeks for numbers to hit a peak even as hard preventive measures to cut transmissions are applied, it should take at least two weeks for the numbers to fall back down to zero.
However, the real unknown now is whether 1,426 cases in one day is even the peak yet.
The April 21, 2020 MOH daily update will be highly anticipated.
Top photo via Clean & Green Singapore