Singapore, the tiny country of 5.7 million people, is now emerging as one of the highest number of Covid-19 cases in the region, with the total number of infections exceeding 13,000, overtaking Japan but behind China and India, due to outbreaks in cramped dormitories housing over 300,000 mainly South Asian workers.
The country also has one of the lowest death rates from the pandemic with a total of 12 fatalities.
On Sunday, the island-nation reported 931 new cases. The vast majority of the new cases are migrant workers living in dormitories, its citizens and permanent residents made up just 15 of the new casesthe health ministry said in the statement.
Last week, the Singapore government extended its “circuit-breaker” until June 1 to contain the outbreak, which include keeping schools shut, closing non-essential businesses and confining foreign workers in their dormitories.
Singapore is bracing for a sharper economic contraction this year than an earlier forecast of a slump of as much as 4 percent, as the coronavirus pandemic continues to spread globally and disrupts supply chains. The city-state is “very likely” to see a steeper fall in GDP, Trade and Industry Minister Chan Chun Sing said in an interview on Thursday, as the global outbreak leads to a “more serious problem” than anticipated a month ago. – Bloomberg
All these projections mean that Singapore is charting a course towards possibly the worst recession on record.
