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07-08-2021, 02:35 PM
SINGAPORE — England has removed nearly all coronavirus restrictions. Germany is allowing vaccinated people to travel without quarantines. Outdoor mask mandates are mostly gone in Italy. Shopping malls remain open in Singapore.
Eighteen months after the coronavirus first emerged, governments in Asia, Europe and the Americas are encouraging people to return to their daily rhythms and transition to a new normal in which subways, offices, restaurants and airports are once again full. Increasingly, the mantra is the same: We have to learn to live with the virus.
For months, many residents in Singapore, the small Southeast Asian city-state, pored over the details of each new Covid case. There was a palpable sense of dread when infections reached double digits for the first time. And with borders closed, there was also a feeling of defeat, since even the most diligent measures were not enough to prevent infection.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/21/world...virus.html
“You need to tell people: We’re going to get a lot of cases,” said Dale Fisher, a professor of medicine at the National University of Singapore who heads the National Infection Prevention and Control Committee of Singapore’s Health Ministry. “And that’s part of the plan — we have to let it go.”
In the absence of most rules, the government is urging people to use “personal responsibility” to maintain safety. Sajid Javid, Britain’s health secretary — who tested positive for the coronavirus last week — said last month that the country needed to “learn to live” with the virus. That is despite polls suggesting that the English public prefers a more gradual approach to reopening.
Officials in Singapore, which reported a year-high 182 locally transmitted infections on Tuesday, say the number of cases is likely to rise in the coming days. The outbreak appears to have delayed but not scuttled plans for a phased reopening.
“You give people a sense of progression,” Ong Ye Kung, Singapore’s health minister, said this month, “rather than waiting for that big day when everything opens and then you go crazy.”
Eighteen months after the coronavirus first emerged, governments in Asia, Europe and the Americas are encouraging people to return to their daily rhythms and transition to a new normal in which subways, offices, restaurants and airports are once again full. Increasingly, the mantra is the same: We have to learn to live with the virus.
For months, many residents in Singapore, the small Southeast Asian city-state, pored over the details of each new Covid case. There was a palpable sense of dread when infections reached double digits for the first time. And with borders closed, there was also a feeling of defeat, since even the most diligent measures were not enough to prevent infection.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/21/world...virus.html
“You need to tell people: We’re going to get a lot of cases,” said Dale Fisher, a professor of medicine at the National University of Singapore who heads the National Infection Prevention and Control Committee of Singapore’s Health Ministry. “And that’s part of the plan — we have to let it go.”
In the absence of most rules, the government is urging people to use “personal responsibility” to maintain safety. Sajid Javid, Britain’s health secretary — who tested positive for the coronavirus last week — said last month that the country needed to “learn to live” with the virus. That is despite polls suggesting that the English public prefers a more gradual approach to reopening.
Officials in Singapore, which reported a year-high 182 locally transmitted infections on Tuesday, say the number of cases is likely to rise in the coming days. The outbreak appears to have delayed but not scuttled plans for a phased reopening.
“You give people a sense of progression,” Ong Ye Kung, Singapore’s health minister, said this month, “rather than waiting for that big day when everything opens and then you go crazy.”
