Singapore minister urges authorities to prepare for 'spike' in coronavirus cases

Singapore's National Development Minister Lawrence Wong has asked people and authorities to be prepared for 'new spikes' in COVID-19 cases. According to the minister, it is impossible to isolate and shut Singapore from the rest of the world and therefore Singapore has to prepare for new cases of the coronavirus.

New cases likely despite precautions

On March 3, Wong announced that Singapore is blocking the entry and transit of all visitors who travelled to Iran, northern Italy or South Korea within the last 14 days. This measure in addition to several other precautions will be taking effect from March 4. These measures according to Wong are meant to help reduce the risk of imported coronavirus cases in Singapore.

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While talking to local media, Wong claimes that the virus was spreading rapidly in countries everywhere and since Singapore is a small open city that is connected to the world, the risk of imported cases is high. While Wong said the authorities were taking every possible precaution to try and contain and stop the spread of the virus, the people must be mentally prepared to see a number of infected in Singapore to go up.

Wong further added that currently Singapore was seeing a small steady rise in the number of cases every day but that can very easily change, taking the example of several other countries where the number of infected cases skyrocketed in just a few days.

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Singapore has recorded 110 cases till March 2 and 78 of the previously infected have recovered and have been discharged. Of the 32 that are still in the hospital, most are stable and improving while seven are in critical condition. The deadly coronavirus outbreak that started in Hubei province in China last year has spread to several countries. There have been 93,160 confirmed cases worldwide with more than 3,000 deaths.

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(With inputs from PTI)