Ho Ching, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Temasek Holdings Pte Ltd, apologised on social media after mistakenly alarming netizens with a social media post on Covid-19.
In a Facebook post on Sunday (Nov 1), Mdm Ho wrote: “Apologies for causing some unintended alarm!”
She added: “Some folks fret about a 2nd wave if allow travellers to come in without SHN”.
She explained that netizens were worried about a post she wrote a few days ago on Covid-19.
In a separate Facebook post, Mdm Ho shared, “Studies have shown that there can be 3 or 4 generations of infections before one person is sick enough to go see a doctor.
So silent clusters can build up unknowingly in a community, before we suddenly see cases popping up rapidly across the general population”.
To quell fears about her previous post, she went on to explain about Singapore’s situation and how many safeguards and precautions have been put in place to avoid increasing numbers of infections.
She wrote: “it’s now November, and not March or April, when we didn’t have the capacities nor the tools and capabilities we have today”.
“For instance, we now have quick Covid antigen test in volume, since Oct, which we did not have earlier. These allow us to get results in 15 minutes, to enable us to segregate infectious C+ cases fast and early. We didn’t have these as recently as in September”, she explained.
Mdm Ho wrote that instead of infecting on average 2-3 other persons, an infectious C+ index case in Singapore infects about 1 other person.
“This combination of what we do as individuals, as organisations and government, and as a society, will help pre-empt a 2nd wave.
A whole of nation approach is critical”, she said.
Answering the question as to whether we are fully protected yet against a possible second wave of Covid-19, Mdm Ho wrote: “We are not there yet, in terms of putting community screening systems in place”.
“As someone pointed out, the best time to repair or revamp a roof is during sunny weather,” she wrote.
In her post, Mdm Ho went into some detail about the different types of Covid-19 tests, as well as the pros or cons of each type of test. She then added: “This is why we wear mask, any masks, including DIY cotton masks, washing our hands frequently, and avoid touching our eyes, nose and mouth without first cleaning our hands.
Wearing masks keeps our saliva to ourselves, and prevent the spread of saliva droplets which may contain infectious virus”, she said.
“So we know empirically that these safe distancing and other Covid precautions are working, not just to reduce the risk of Covid transmission, but also other respiratory infections too”.
She urged Singaporeans to continue to maintain precautions for another 3-6 months, even while seeing places like USA and Europe hitting record daily highs.
“Let’s also work with the various agencies to pilot more community testing to try to reduce the risk of hidden superspreader clusters from multiplying under the radar,” she said. -/TISG