Defying Last Year's Critics, Singapore is now the Best Place in the World to Be During Covid-19 Pandemic
Defying Last Year's Critics, Singapore is now the Best Place in the World to Be During Covid-19 Pandemic
Whenever SG does well, certain people become deafeningly silent
The latest Covid Resilience Ranking by Bloomberg has Singapore taking the top spot in the world, as the best, safest place to be in right now, during the pandemic.
But, frankly speaking, Bloomberg is wrong - Singapore should have been ranked 1st spot earlier. Alas, such is the nature of rankings.
I distinctly remember certain Singaporean opportunists - I won't name names, since we all know who they are - attacking the local government's response to the pandemic right about now last year, when the outbreak in dorms housing migrant workers was accelerating.
Remember? Pepperidge Farm remembers.
Singapore is one of very few places which saw significant outbreaks that they have managed to nip in the bud, allowing citizens to resume largely normal lives quite quickly. This, to me, is a far greater feat than closing the borders in a sparsely populated country located far in the Antipodes (hello, New Zealand).
And the densely populated city-state has managed to do it before vaccines even became available. Unlike UK or Israel, it didn't have to desperately fight by hook or crook to get hands on the life-saving vials but can wait patiently for shipments to arrive, knowing full well that the community spread is very, very limited thanks to months of restrictions - and societal discipline of Singaporeans.
And, instead of deploying whatever vaccine is in reach, it can ensure that everyone receives the most effective, safest and most expensive novel mRNA jabs, rather than AstraZeneca or J&J surrounded by controversies and uncertainty over safety.
I just wish I would know what happened to all those rambunctious armchair critics so liberally hurling abuse and gloating over the Covid "crisis" (which was contained largely thanks to the separation of migrant workers from the local residents in dorms) ahead of the election in July 2020...
As Singapore proves it can rise to the top in yet another area, in the midst of the worst pandemic in a century, their silence is deafening.