TR EMERITUS

I refer to the news that more and more foreigners are coming to Singapore to seek medical treatment for Covid-19. We cannot stop foreigners from coming to Singapore to seek medical treatment, in fact, medical tourism is a huge revenue earner for us with lucrative multiplier effects. It runs counter to our national interest if we do not maximise medical tourism's full potentials, however, Covid-19 is the exception and it is imperative that the government must have the foresight and wisdom to recognise it and never allow short-sightedness or greed to blind them again. Let me explain. We are an open economy and a lockdown of Singapore is out of the question. Going forward, we can reasonably expect an increase in Covid-19 cases. Covid-19 is a highly contagious virus. Our medical resources dedicated to handle Covid-19 such as quarantine facilities and medical people are not in unlimited supply. The reasons continue... Priority places in our public healthcare must be given to Singaporeans. Period! The pap government owes his basic duty and obligation to all Singaporeans. If our private hospitals are well-equipped enough to handle foreign patients infected with Covid-19, then foreigners are free to seek treatments there but to further allow, dilute and strain our public resources to treat foreigners who come specifically to seek treatment for Covid-19, then thinking Singaporeans must collectively voice our opposition to any greedy and/or stupid government's actions. The past practices of paying Indonesian agents for bringing Indonesian patients to seek medical treatments at our public hospitals had alearly drawn huge unhappiness and uproars among those Singaporeans who knew about it. All that boiled down to Official Greed. In this very challenging time of Covid-19 pandemic, the Singapore government must make it very clear that our public hospitals and all public resources are only meant to serve and save Singaporeans, first and foremost and cost-free. For those foreigners who are working in Singapore and if they, unfortunately, need to be hospitalised for Covid-19, they must pay for their own treatments. I suggest that PRs pay subsidised rates. Furthermore, foreigners who specifically come to Singapore to seek medical treatment for Covid-19 can only do so at our private hospitals. All our public hospitals will not be able to attend to them. Foreigners are the responsibility of their own government. If we are not careful, foreigners can very easily overwhelm our medical facilities and resources and our citizens will again lose out due to an incompetent and/or greedy government.   Simon Lim      Read More →

Don't treat your people as "stupid idiots"! "First, many health experts, including the surgeon general of the United States, told the public simultaneously that masks weren’t necessary for protecting the general public and that health care workers needed the dwindling supply. This contradiction confuses an ordinary listener. How do these masks magically protect the wearers only and only if they work in a particular field? Second, there were attempts to bolster the first message, that ordinary people didn’t need masks, by telling people that masks, especially medical-grade respirator masks (such as the N95 masks), needed proper fitting and that ordinary people without such fitting wouldn’t benefit. This message was also deeply counterproductive. Many people also wash their hands wrong, but we don’t respond to that by telling them not to bother. Instead, we provide instructions; we post signs in bathrooms; we help people sing songs that time their hand-washing. Telling people they can’t possibly figure out how to wear a mask properly isn’t a winning message. Besides, when you tell people that something works only if done right, they think they will be the person who does it right, even if everyone else doesn’t. Third, of course masks work — maybe not perfectly and not all to the same degree, but they provide some protection. Their use has always been advised as part of the standard response to being around infected people, especially for people who may be vulnerable. World Health Organization officials wear masks during their news briefings. That was the reason I had bought a few in early January — I had been conducting research in Hong Kong, which has a lot of contact with mainland China, and expected to go back. I had studied and taught about the sociology of pandemics and knew from the SARS experience in 2003 that health officials in many high-risk Asian countries had advised wearing masks. It is of course true that masks don’t work perfectly, that they don’t replace hand-washing and social distancing, and that they work better if they fit properly. And of course, surgical masks (the disposable type that surgeons wear) don’t filter out small viral particles the way medical-grade respirator masks rated N95 and above do. However, even surgical masks protect a bit more than not wearing masks at all. We know from flu research that mask-wearing can help decrease transmission rates along with frequent hand-washing and social-distancing. Now that we are facing a respirator mask shortage, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is recommending that surgical masks are “an acceptable alternative” for health care workers — again, obviously because some protection, even if imperfect, is better than none. In the face of this, publicly presenting an absolute answer — “You don’t need them” — for something that requires a qualified response just makes people trust authorities even less. Fourth, the W.H.O. and the C.D.C. told the public to wear masks if they were sick. However, there is increasing evidence of asymptomatic transmission, especially through younger people who have milder cases and don’t know they are sick but are still infectious. Since the W.H.O. and the C.D.C. do say that masks lessen the chances that infected people will infect others, then everyone should use masks. If the public is told that only the sick people are to wear masks, then those who do wear them will be stigmatized and people may well avoid wearing them if it screams “I’m sick.” Further, it’s very difficult to be tested for Covid-19 in the United States. How are people supposed to know for sure when to mask up? Fifth, places like Hong Kong and Taiwan that jumped to action early with social distancing and universal mask wearing have the pandemic under much greater control, despite having significant travel from mainland China. Hong Kong health officials credit universal mask wearing as part of the solution and recommend universal mask wearing. In fact, Taiwan responded to the coronavirus by immediately ramping up mask production. Sixth, masks are an important signal that it’s not business as usual as well as an act of solidarity. Pandemics require us to change our behavior — our socialization, hygiene, work and more — collectively, and knowing our fellow citizens are on board is important for all efforts."   Goh Meng Seng      Read More →

Last night, Malaysia announced that it would impose a Movement Control Order to combat the spread of COVID-19. This was not surprising, as many other countries have already imposed similar lockdowns. Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin and I discussed the situation on the phone today. I told him that I understood the reasons why he had made this move, and wished Malaysia success in containing the outbreak. I was happy to hear his reassurance that the flow of goods and cargo between Singapore and Malaysia, including food supplies, would continue. However, Malaysians living in Johor but working in Singapore will have to comply with the Malaysian lockdown. This will prevent them from commuting daily, at least for the time being. We are therefore working out arrangements with our companies to help these Malaysian workers stay in Singapore temporarily, if they would like to do so. We also agreed to appoint Senior Ministers on both sides – SM Teo Chee Hean and Dato’ Sri Ismail Sabri – to coordinate our responses to the COVID-19 outbreak, particularly on measures where we can work together, or where the actions of one country will affect the other. They are already in touch, but it may take a couple of days for arrangements to be worked out and to settle down. Meanwhile, I am happy to see that in the supermarkets, while the queues are longer than usual, people are taking it in their stride and only buying what they need. We need not worry, as we have prepared for such an eventuality, and have plans in place to cope. Glad that Singaporeans are calm, united and resilient as we solve the problems at hand.   * Facebook post by PM Lee Hsien Loong.      Read More →