A spike in COVID-19 cases globally has resulted in numerous countries taking stricter measures to control the spread, including Malaysia, who declared a nationwide lockdown that begun on Wednesday, 18 March.
On 20 March, National Development Minister Lawrence Wong dispelled rumours that Singapore was going into a lockdown. “Can I just make it very clear? There is no lockdown,” he said in a press conference.
The lockdown approach appears to have worked for China, with Hubei reporting zero new infections since the virus first emerged there. But Associate Professor Hsu Li Yang, Programme Leader (Infectious Diseases), commented that such an approach cannot be done indefinitely.
“A lockdown is a ‘nuclear option’ reserved for when community transmission has to be brought under control quickly,” said Assoc Prof Hsu.
Whether such an extreme measure is warranted depends on how much each society can tolerate its costs, he said, adding that “sometimes that price is far higher than what the virus can do”.
Considering that different countries are at different phases of the epidemic, Assoc Prof Hsu said that each country would have to find the right balance and use its strengths where possible to control the outbreak.
Media coverage:
- Coronavirus: ‘Nuclear option’ of lockdown highly unlikely in Singapore, The New Paper, 20 March 2020
- Coronavirus: ‘Nuclear option’ of lockdown highly unlikely in Singapore, The Straits Times, 20 March 2020
Related: Why Singapore is preparing to tap the brakes to slow COVID-19 spread