Singapore, (Samajweekly) Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Saturday said that he expected the daily Covid-19 cases to continue rising for some weeks and the country’s healthcare system will still be under pressure.
“We can slow, but we cannot stop the Delta variant,” said Lee when delivering his message on updating the Covid-19 situation in Singapore.
He said that the surge of daily cases will level off and cases will start to decline at the timing that is unknown exactly right now, Xinhua news agency reported.
But from the experience of other countries, it will hopefully be within a month or so.
The Prime Minister said that it has been a long campaign against Covid-19, adding: “The war continues, but we are in a much better position now, than a year or even six months ago.
“Sometimes it may not feel like it, but we are making steady progress towards the new normal.”
Singapore’s registered 3,590 new cases in the last 24 hours, bringing the total tally in the country to 120,454, the Health Ministry said.
This is the fourth consecutive day when the daily new cases have surpassed 3,000.
The Ministry also said with six new fatalities, the death toll increased to 142.
Lee said that Singapore must protect its healthcare system and workers at all costs, in order to get through the pandemic safely.
He asked Singaporeans to support this effort by continuing to abide by prevailing Safe Management Measures (SMMs) and cutting back on social activities to slow the spread of the virus, getting vaccinated, conducting self-test regularly to avoid infecting others, and recovering at home if infected unless having serious illness or vulnerable family members.
He also said that it will take Singapore three to six months to get to the new normal, when the country can ease off restrictions, have just light SMMs in place, and cases remain stable.
According to the Prime Minister, Singapore must press on with its strategy of “Living with Covid-19”.
He said with vaccinations, Covid-19 has become a treatable, mild disease for most people.
“So for 98 per cent of us, if we catch Covid-19, we can recover by ourselves at home, just as we would if we had the flu.”
He also said that as part of living with Covid-19, Singapore must also connect itself back to the world.
In particular, the country must continue to re-open its borders safely.
Singapore has started Vaccinated Travel Lanes with Germany and Brunei, and recently announced another with South Korea.
Lee said that Singapore is implementing more such arrangements, especially with countries whose Covid-19 situations are stable, so as to keep the country connected to global supply chains and help to preserve Singapore’s hub status.
