Singapore — On Tuesday (Sept 28), Workers’ Party MP Jamus Lim (Sengkang GRC) posted a rare personal photo on his Facebook page, and encouraged everyone to “remember that there is a silver lining in every dark cloud.”
Posting a photo of himself playing the guitar to his little girl, he wrote, “There is at least one of us that is delighted that Singapore has reverted back to work-from-home over the next month!”
The Sengkang MP seldom posts photos of his family, and like many public figures who are parents, most of the time, the pictures he puts up are those where her back is turned to the camera.
“While some have been frustrated by our stop-go #COVID-19 policies, let’s remember that there is a silver lining in every dark cloud, and that after the rain, the weather turns fair (at least, that’s how our Chinese compositions always went).
As a nation, we will get through this together.”
There has been some degree of tension in Singapore lately, given the record-high number of new Covid-19 infections.
On Tuesday, the Ministry of Health reported that there were 2,236 new Covid cases, the first time the country breached the 2000 mark since the beginning of the pandemic early in 2020.
Five more elderly individuals also passed away from Covid complications, the MOH added.
Last Friday, the Multi-Ministry Task Force assigned to manage the pandemic announced a return to tighter restrictions in order to prevent the healthcare system from being overwhelmed.
Finance Minister Lawrence Wong said then that the uptick may be expected to last for a while, adding that numbers of new cases are expected to continue to rise.
Included among the restrictions the MTF announced is that people would be on Work From Home basis for a month, from Sept 27 to Oct 24.
Many Singaporeans have been frustrated at the “yo-yo” restrictions, which is perhaps why Assoc Prof Lim posted about finding the silver lining in the situation.
Last week, he wrote in another Facebook post that perhaps the time has come for mask-wearing to be relaxed when outdoors, adding that “there are clear signs of mask fatigue.”
He wrote on Sept 21, “Excess caution was probably warranted in the earlier part of the COVID-19 pandemic, given our state of knowledge at the time. But two years on, our understanding of the disease has evolved significantly.
One development has been the far lower transmission rates of COVID-19 outdoors, as opposed to indoors.
… keeping the mask on constantly is stifling, and all the more so in our hot and humid climate. This is especially so for those who work outdoors (like cleaners and gardeners), who don’t have the “exercising” excuse to unmask. Not only that, it often leads to people ripping their masks off once indoors, to obtain some relief.
There are clear signs of mask fatigue… We aren’t machines, and public health policy should ultimately be sustainable.”
/TISG
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