OPINION
WHAT TO MAKE OF OUR PANDEMIC CURVE?
What can be discerned from the shape of the latest wave of local community Covid-19 cases in the pandemic curve?
(1) From the 1 total case on July 11th, it spiked sharply in 9 days to a peak of 182 cases by July 20th, followed by an equally sharp descent to 130 cases 3 days later, only to hover at a near plateau around that number till today’s 131 cases.
(2) The reason why there is a plateau instead of a further decline of total cases is because the great efforts by MOH to control the large and established clusters are met with a corresponding increase in unlinked cases. From the peak on July 20th, over the last 11 days, the halving of linked cases is matched by a doubling of unlinked cases.
(3) This indicates that Covid-19 infections are diffusing and dispersing out from the main clusters and predictable scenarios to sporadic, unforeseen and widely separated localities.
(4) If this trend continues, the great efforts by MOH to test, trace, quarantine and isolate potential cases in order to ring-fence outbreaks will become less and less effective in suppressing case numbers as they are unlikely to keep up with the ever widening diffusion of cases.
(5) With the sharp increase in the number of the very ill Covid-19 patients, those requiring oxygen supplementation (26 people) or those in intensive care units (ICU) (7 people) over the last two weeks, rising from 8 to 33 people, our efforts and strategy appear not to be achieving our objectives in fighting the pandemic. We should remember that our main objectives are firstly, to prevent death and severe illness, secondly, to prevent our health system from being overwhelmed, thirdly, to prevent the high morbidity of widespread infections, and lastly, to allow our economy to recover its vibrancy and our nation to recover her confidence.
(6) It is time to switch gears soon as our vaccination rates especially among the >60s are about to be high enough. Less resources should be spent trying to trace every case of infection especially when they are mild or asymptomatic. More efforts and new initiatives to identify, safeguard and possibly mandatorily vaccinate the elderly, those with co-morbidities and other vulnerable people should be instituted as soon as possible.
