| The city-state has learned a lot from the sars crisis and is not letting the coronavirus get it down. Not all recipes are transferable to other countries, but some are. And unusual measures are being taken to ensure the cohesion of society. This article published on 3/9/2020 is translated from the German in the Neue Zurich Zeitung newspaper. |
| http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2020/03/438317.shtml How Singapore has taken control of the virus and avoided panic The city-state has learned a lot from the sars crisis and is not letting the coronavirus get it down. Not all recipes are transferable to other countries, but some are. And unusual measures are being taken to ensure the cohesion of society. by Manfred Rist, Singapore [This article published on 3/9/2020 is translated from the German on the Internet.] Arriving passengers are checked for elevated body temperature by medical personnel at Singapore’s Changi airport. Scene City Hall in central Singapore at the end of last week: A networking event takes place in a popular restaurant of the Marché-Mövenpick chain. The place is packed, the atmosphere is good, nobody is wearing a respirator. Why should they? Even six weeks after the first case of infection, the number of people affected by the coronavirus is ultimately still small. There is no sign of panic, people have confidence in the measures taken by the government and – contrary to initial fears – there is no exponential increase in the number of infections. Three findings after six weeks The relevant diagrams for Covid-19 in the city-state rather show something rather calming: since 23 January, when the first case of infection was recorded, the virus has firstly not spread explosively but linearly and has infected 138 people by the weekend. Secondly, the line of patients recovered, which now stands at 90, runs parallel to the first, which means that the course of the disease has remained the same so far and is therefore predictable. In this context, the third finding: after an average of 12 days, a patient has usually overcome the infection. In Singapore, a large proportion of those infected are healthy again |
