Coronavirus: Singapore should encourage working from home over closing schools, report says
- Researchers writing in The Lancet recommended the distancing measure as a ‘continually high’ percentage of infections occurred in the workplace
- Singaporeans are of the mentality that commitment to their jobs means spending longer hours in the office, according to a health expert
The methods were isolating individuals diagnosed with Covid-19; quarantining family members of those infected; closing schools; and workplace distancing, in which 50 per cent of the workforce is encouraged to work from home for two weeks.
After examining Singapore’s first 243 infections – of which 68 were imported and 175 locally acquired – and running a simulation based on low infectivity or transmission levels, the report’s authors found that combining the four intervention methods could help the Lion City prevent a national outbreak.
If infectivity levels were high, the methods could “reduce the number of total infections considerably”, the report said.
“Despite heightened surveillance and isolation of individuals suspected to have Covid-19 and confirmed cases, the risk is ongoing, with the number of cases continuing to increase in Singapore,” it said. “Immediate deployment of interventions will be required to contain the outbreak in the event that significant secondary local transmission is observed within the community.”
There are currently 558 cases and two deaths in Singapore, which has maintained that most of its recent cases are imported ones and are mostly Singapore citizens or residents who have returned from virus-hit areas such as the United States and Britain.