Thread by @MsMelChen

Life in Singapore (243 cases, 0 deaths) has pretty much returned to normal.

People are walking around, mostly without masks. Shops & restaurants are open.

Big events & school activities such as tournaments were canceled, but schools remained open unless there was a case.

How:
- travel restrictions (they did this early)
- isolated infections
- aggressive contact-tracing procedures
- levied tough penalties for not following quarantines
- punished those who provided false info
- effective communication that struck right balance
- full transparency

What they didn't do:

- area-wide lockdowns
- edict to close businesses
- weld people shut in their apartments
- press to call government officials' actions racist
- punish whistleblowers
- care about "looking bad," thereby obscuring reality

Today, life in Singapore with COVID19 is disrupted (or "slightly inconvenienced") by pervasive temperature scans & information-taking.

We're talking about every building, office, mall, hospital.

Large events (>250 people) are still canceled, but other than that, life goes on.

On February 9th, here's what the # of cases outside of China looks like:

No one in Singapore was sanguine about the country's prospects... it looked grave.