Singapore — In an interview on Tuesday night (Aug 17), political leader and infectious disease specialist Dr Paul Ananth Tambyah held an interview aired over Facebook entitled “Ask Paul Anything”.
Dr Tambyah, the chairman of the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) talked about living with the virus, which he explained means accepting that the virus has become endemic, meaning that it’s everywhere.
He added that there’s no way to eliminate the virus using the current methods “without paying a tremendous price.”
The SDP chair mentioned that he had just seen the news that New Zealand is locking down the whole country for three days, which is possible due to its remote location.
However, he acknowledged that in most other countries this cannot be done.
Dr Tambyah added that he was quite heartened when, a few weeks ago, the ministerial taskforce argued in a Straits Times editorial that the country should “aim to live with the virus, identify the vulnerable, ramp up the vaccination rates, and try to get on with life as much as possible.”
In effect, this veers away from the Covid-Zero approach many countries in the region have taken, but, given the length of time it has taken to manage the pandemic, is proving that a new approach is needful.
When asked to rate the ministerial taskforce and comment on how this might affect succession issues, he diplomatically said that it was too early to comment on such, after only a year and a half into the pandemic.
He did say that the government has done some things right, including the ST editorial from Jun wherein Ministers Gan Kim Yong, Lawrence Wong and Ong Ye Kung drew up “a road map to transit to this new normal.”
However, he noted the confusion and frustration that small business owners have faced without criteria for tightening and loosening restrictions, such as the number of unlinked cases necessitating restoring restrictions, and so on.
He added that if Singaporeans came up with alternative solutions, it would be good if the multi-ministry task force would take these seriously.
During the interview, Dr Tambyah touched on a number of varied topics: from global politics, vaccine patents, and restrictions on vaccine choices, the possibility of mixing vaccines, making vaccines mandatory, the need for a third vaccine shot, the Delta variant, the ‘unacceptable’ levels of social support in Singapore based on income levels, among other topics.
At the very end of the interview, which is almost an hour and fifteen minutes long, the SDP chair was asked if he should be on the multi-ministry task force, since he is, after all, an infectious disease expert.
“I’m so glad I’m not on the task force,” he answered with a laugh, saying that he is glad to be what he’s doing now, which is research, seeing patients, educating medical professionals and the public.
He did add that he would have liked to have seen more transparency and more engagement with the public but acknowledged that it has been a “very challenging” year and a half.
“We need you to become Minister of Health,” the interviewer said.
“Of course,” Dr Tambyah answered immediately, as both he and the interviewer laughed. /TISG
Covid-19: Revenge of the elderly, neglected dialect-speaking Chinese Singaporean?