Lim Tean calls record high COVID cases “Shameful Milestone”, but Alex Cook says it’s possible high numbers are the result of too much testing

Singapore — According to lawyer and opposition leader Lim Tean, the record-high number of new Covid-19 cases on Tuesday (Oct 5) of 3,480 is a “shameful milestone” for Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong as well as Lawrence Wong, Ong Ye Kung, and Gan Kim Yong, the ministers heading the Multi-ministry Task Force dealing with the pandemic.

However, it bears pointing out that the vast majority of the new infections are mild or even asymptomatic, and most of the new cases have qualified for the Home Recovery Programme, and do not need to be admitted to hospitals. 

As other countries are watching Singapore’s decision to re-open based on treating Covid-19 as endemic, some observers have even said that it’s possible that the high number of cases recorded recently reflect Singapore’s high rate of testing.

In Singapore, the average number of tests performed on each person is 3.3, in comparison to the United States, where the average is 1.7, according to the UK-based Our World in Data project.

In its eight-point plan to exit the pandemic, one of the points suggested by the Singapore Democratic Party is to stop testing asymptomatic patients other than for contact tracing, as this would allow for more resources to be allocated to the most vulnerable.

But for Mr Lim, who heads the People’s Voice party, the high numbers of positive cases seem to continue to raise alarms.

He wrote in a Facebook post that the record high “lashed on my phone late last night,” calling it a “horrific figure.”

Moreover, he minced no words regarding his opinion on the performance of the MTF.

“It is a figure that belies all the bravado Ong Ye Kung and Lawrence Wong have put up publicly about being in control of the situation. These 2 abject incompetents have no idea of what they are doing and the situation is now totally out of control as far as I am concerned. They are sitting there, heading a useless Taskforce, that is waiting for 5000 or more Singaporeans to be infected in a day.”

He cited the vice-dean of Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, Prof Alex Cook, as having said on Oct 1 that Singapore could see as many as 10,000 new infections daily in the next two weeks.

But Prof Cook also said in the same context that aggressively testing for Covid no longer makes sense. 

“At this point, however, it could be argued that we are testing too much,” the South China Morning Post quotes him as saying. 

Mr Lim also took a potshot at Singapore’s fatality rate from Covid, which has risen steadily of late, especially among senior citizens.

“In the past, one of the excuses for incompetence was that our death rate from the virus was very low by world standards compared to other countries… We have reached another milestone, because our death rate now tops many countries and is above the world average!,” he wrote. /TISG

Read also: Lim Tean calls Lee Hsien Loong ‘Prime Minister Who Has Disappeared!’

Lim Tean calls Lee Hsien Loong ‘Prime Minister Who Has Disappeared!’