Day 8 of Singapore's COVID-19 Circuit Breaker - Helicopter Money is Here!
Singapore's COVID-19 circuit breaker started on 7th April. If we count that as day 1, then today is day 8 of the circuit breaker. 14th April is also a day which many Singaporeans are looking forward to as it is "airdrop" day!
As part of Singapore's Solidarity budget, all adult Singapore citizens will be getting a one-off payment of $600 to help us tide through these difficult times. The payment date is today and when I checked, my money is in! I think many Singaporeans were excited about this sum of money and overloaded the internet banking site this morning.
This is not the only support that the government is providing and more can be found here.
Largest COVID-19 case count surge yesterday
Yesterday, Singapore reported 386 new positive cases of COVID-19. This is the largest single day surge we have seen so far. Most of the new cases are linked to the clusters from foreign workers' dormitories, with one of the dormitories clusters adding 222 new cases.
Source
While the surge in cases seem ominous, I think we also need to pay attention to some of the details in the report.
Of the 1,158 confirmed cases who are still in hospital, most are stable or improving. 29 are in critical condition in the intensive care unit. 1,165 cases who are clinically well but still test positive for COVID-19 are isolated and cared for at community facilities.
As I pointed out in one of my earlier posts, many positive cases are asymptomatic or just having very mild symptoms. Hence, even though the number of cases seems high now in Singapore, most of them are in stable conditions. This means that the situation is not as bad as it seems.
Singaporeans are finally taking it more seriously
In my previous post in the situation in Singapore, I talked about the benefits of having everyone wearing masks.
The Singapore government shifted their original stance from discouraging healthy people from wearing masks to no longer discourage the wearing of mask. Now, they have quietly shifted to a stance of encouraging wearing of masks.
One thing bad about the Singapore government is that they will never admit their mistakes, but perhaps this is the same for all governments? Besides mandating wearing of masks for personnel at food establishments, masks are also becoming compulsory in public transport and supermarkets. Good to see we are progressing in the right direction in terms of mask wearing.
Overall, Singaporeans are now taking all these measures much more seriously. There are some videos and images circulated over social media on police enforcing the circuit breaker rules in Singapore. I think all these are giving the right signals that the government is serious about all these rules. Here is a video from Channel News Asia on how much Singaporeans are following the rules,
It is day 8 of the circuit breaker and I remain hopeful that things will get better soon. Though it might get a little worse before it gets better. Stay safe and healthy everyone.
Hi @culgin
What an interesting choice of topic :) Helicopter money - I like this description ;)
Also finally I found some time to catch up with Steemit and read some publications posted within our community.
Upvoted already,
Cheers, Piotr
Haha.. I shared by giving this comment an upvote!
Well, no government will say anything about their mistakes. We knew it from before, and we can see it even clearer these days. Also good to see that people start to take matters seriously. Where I live, in Hungary, people have actually taken things quite seriously from the start, and that is why we still have quite low numbers here. But, the problem now is that I do not see how and where this will ever end, at least not until we get a vaccine...
Yea. It seems like it is going to drag on for quite a long while. The vaccine is going to take some time
Hi, it's good that preventive measures are taken seriously, they really help.
Very good also the support they are receiving from the government.
Is it a support that you receive regularly or only because of the pandemic?
It is due to the pandemic but we often get helicopter money when elections are coming 😉
One thing i am happy with the government of most countries is that they are trying to curtail and prevent this virus from spreading more. Also, never expect a government to apologise for their mistakes, they will always find a word to say so as not to show their weaknesses.
The governmental body over there are doing great to help their citizens survive this pandemic.
You guys are really lucky over there, most African countries have not received anything from the government yet.
The Singaporean government giving $600 is a good one for relief during this pandemic.