Thread by @bopinion

At the dawn of 2021, Singapore is verging on normality:

🍲Last-minute dinner reservations are tough to secure
🛣️Roads are full of traffic again
📝Children are in school
bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

Singapore’s GDP is projected to increase between 4 and 6% this year, compared with a contraction of 5.8% in 2020.

This brighter outlook and cautious easing of restrictions reflects Singapore’s success at containing Covid-19 infections bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

Yet Singapore’s coronavirus-fighting achievements rest on a model that isn’t easily exported.

Results are enabled by a degree of state influence that other countries might find uncomfortable bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

Singapore is now in phase three of its reopening which allows:

✅Gatherings of eight people
✅Congregations at religious services
✅Workers to be in their offices more easily

If this sounds enviable, consider the amount of compliance it took to get here bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

It’s compulsory to:

➡️Swipe into any establishment using its QR code, preferably with the official TraceTogether app
➡️Submit to a temperature check
➡️Wear a mask bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

The first-time offence for not wearing a mask is a fine of $225; second transgressions receive a $754 penalty. Repeat offences invite prosecution.

Even kids above age seven are expected to comply bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

The effectiveness of Singapore’s approach lies in its combination of subtlety and pervasiveness.

By mid-December, about 65% of the population used either the TraceTogether app or alternative tokens. Even taxis have barcodes to be scanned bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

Safe Distancing Ambassadors, civilians who make sure people don't get too close to each other, were an ubiquitous and forceful presence at first.

Once exceptional, their presence is now mundane bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

Compare Singapore to elsewhere in the world:

🇦🇺Mask-wearing was just made mandatory in Sydney
🇫🇷In France, ski resorts have sued the government to keep lifts operating
🇺🇸Millions of people passed through U.S. airports in the week leading up to Christmas bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

Singapore didn’t suddenly discover big government during this pandemic.

From the companies that drove the development of the past six decades to supermarkets run by government-aligned unions, public-sector activism is one of Singapore’s defining qualities bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

For other nations to follow suit will require a big psychological shift.

But another year of health-care chaos in London, New York or Sydney, and attitudes about the boundaries of state responsibility and the domain of individual liberty might change bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…