[ad_1]
SINGAPORE: COVID-19 could be “with us for a long time,” but the coronavirus may be contained if Singapore follows its “dance steps,” leading infectious disease specialist Leo Yee Sin said on May 14.
Calling the ongoing “circuit breaker” a “hammer” to slow the spread of the virus, he said that while strict safe distancing measures have flattened the infection curve in the community, such restrictions “are not sustainable.”
Ad
“Eventually, we need to get out of that confinement situation,” said Professor Leo, who was speaking at a webinar organized by the NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine and the University’s National Health System.
However, the virus is unlikely to be removed, so the next step would be to minimize its impact, he said.
“What we have left is that we now develop a system to contain the virus in a way that basically follows the virus’s dance step,” said Professor Leo, executive director of the National Center for Infectious Diseases. (NCID)
Source: Tomás Pueyo through the National Center for Infectious Diseases.
She said the most likely scenario would be “waves of the epidemic interspersed with periods of low-level transmission.” Singapore needs to have the capacity and healthcare capacity to deal with intermittent waves of infections, he added.
“It is extremely important that we need to be able to maintain that capacity (public health capacity) and capacity; continue to have an active case search (and be able to) contact track, isolate, quarantine and have a rapid response team to to be able to respond to any of the possible epidemic waves in the future, “he said.
READ: Coronavirus can never go away: WHO
The World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Wednesday that the coronavirus will never go away.
“It is important to put this on the table: this virus can become another endemic virus in our communities, and this virus will never go away,” said WHO emergency expert Mike Ryan in an online briefing.
“I think there are no promises in this and there are no dates. This disease can become a long problem, or it may not be.”
Professor Leo made a similar assessment, adding that by suppressing the virus, Singapore can reduce the infection rate and the number of deaths while buying time until vaccines are available.
“We are all waiting for more good news about effective pharmaceutical interventions, whether remdesivir will one day become a standard treatment, and possibly everyone waiting one day to see effective vaccines available,” he added.
READ: Remdesivir, an Ebola drug, used to treat patients with COVID-19 in Singapore as part of clinical trials
Singapore has recorded 26,098 cases of COVID-19 so far, with the vast majority of cases involving foreign workers living in dormitories. Twenty-one people have died of complications from COVID-19.
The number of new daily cases in the community has dropped to single digits in the past few days, approximately five weeks after the switch period.
Professor Leo, a veteran of several epidemics, including Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003, admitted that this was one of the “hardest viruses” she has ever addressed.
“I must say that there are no exactly the same outbreaks,” he said.
“They are different viruses, different characteristics.
“We thought we would not be challenged by a virus of this nature. This virus is truly one of, I would say, so far, one of the most difficult viruses that I can see, in terms of how this virus can easily move around the human population. .. Just get ready to join us for a long time. “
She said it has been “a very stressful period” for the health sector in Singapore.
She added: “At NCID, we were provided with a small team of surgeons, but honestly it is extremely inadequate.
“So we have to look at our partner institutions, the Tan Tock Seng Hospital across the road, to give us the improved workforce, and very soon, we realized that it was not enough.”
The entire nation is now engaged in the battle against the disease, he said.
“This is what we call the government-wide approach, where it is no longer limited to just the health care sector, but the entire government is activated with almost all the ministries involved in the entire fight against COVID-19.”
CHECK THIS: Our comprehensive coverage of the coronavirus outbreak and its developments
Download our app or subscribe to our Telegram channel for the latest updates on the coronavirus outbreak: https://cna.asia/telegram
