Singapore — Madam Ho Ching thanked the public in two separate Facebook posts on Tuesday (Sept 21) for slowing down social activities, which will eventually result in fewer new Covid-19 infections.
In the first post, the outgoing Temasek Holdings chief executive officer and wife of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong wrote that she has been monitoring Google mobility data for Singapore since May 1 this year.
“Such mobility data is a proxy for the daily activities – and these can be affected by policies such as the phase 2 heightened alert, any festive or public holidays, and most of all, the social behaviour of our people as a population,” she wrote.
She observed that the busiest day for Singaporeans to go out to eat is Saturday.
Mdm Ho added that two following points can be seen, based on the data.
“One is whenever we have a change in eating and drinking activities, it takes about 3-4 weeks before we see the clear signs of the impact in the new case numbers.”
But it was the second insight about the 7-day rolling average mobility data that she said was most encouraging.
“As of the week up to 15 Sep, we are seeing the activities bending downwards.
Yay!
A big big thank you, everyone!
It means as of last week, we are beginning to slow down the mask off activities at various makan and drinking places.
This also will hopefully show up in 2 weeks’ time as a slowing down of the rapidly rising daily numbers.
Thank you, all, for heeding the call to slow things down a bit.”
However, she warned against complacency, as cases can rise exponentially and fast.
She said that people have already begun to say they’ve tired of Covid restrictions, and yet have continued to exercise discipline, not because of regulations from authorities, but “this is us, being as disciplined as our healthcare workers and frontline teams.
If they are still beavering away, pushing to do this and that, coming to vaccinate people in their homes past their dinner time, looking after patients in isolation wards, ICUs and CCFs, the least we can do is to stay calm and measured in all that we do.”
Mdm Ho expressed the hope that Singaporeans would be “responsible, people, who can take the extra step to self regulate in a way that we can continue our social activities in a measured way for the next 2 months or so.”
She used the idea of more freedoms during the holidays to motivate people to continue to stay disciplined now.
“Let’s work towards a Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year, folks.”
In her second post, she continued along those lines, writing, “A big thank you to all who helped – let’s press on and do more – let’s socialise sensibly – let’s reduce the frequency and diversity of mask down activities…
Take care of ourselves to take care of others. Don’t give up – we can see the light of dawn.”
/TISG
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