Tracking the Coronavirus: How Crowded Asian Cities Tackled an Epidemic (NYT)

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https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/world/asia/coronavirus-singapore-hong-kong-taiwan.html

Tracking the Coronavirus: How Crowded Asian Cities Tackled an Epidemic
Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong offer successful strategies, at least so far, in battling a pandemic. They are lessons that may be hard for the U.S. and Europe to replicate.
By Hannah Beech
March 17, 2020

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For all the panic erupting elsewhere, most Singaporeans do not wear masks out, because the government has told them it’s not needed for their safety. Most schools are still running, albeit with staggered lunchtimes to avoid big crowds. There is plenty of toilet paper.

As of Tuesday evening, Singapore had 266 confirmed cases. Only a fraction are mysteries, unlinked to recent foreign travel or previously identified local clusters, which include churches and a private dinner.

Nearly 115 patients have been discharged from the hospital. Singapore has recorded no deaths from the coronavirus.

When rumors of a mysterious respiratory virus began circulating in China at the beginning of the year, Singapore moved quickly. It was one of the first countries to ban all travelers from mainland China, starting in late January. Thermal scanners measured the temperatures of all who came into the country.

In a nation of 5.7 million residents, Singapore rapidly developed the capacity to test more than 2,000 people a day for the coronavirus. In Washington State, one of the hardest hit places in the United States, public labs are aiming to process 400 samples a day.

Testing is free in Singapore, as is medical treatment for all locals. Singapore has 140 contact tracers outlining each patient’s case history, along with the police and security services doing the shoe-leather work.

Close contacts of patients are put into mandatory quarantine to stop further contagion. Nearly 5,000 have been isolated. Those who dodge quarantine orders can face criminal charges.

All pneumonia patients in Singapore are tested for coronavirus. So are people who are seriously ill. Positive cases have been identified at the airport, at government clinics and, most frequently, through contact tracing.

Singapore’s epidemic regimen was shaped by the 2003 SARS outbreak, when 33 people died out of 238 confirmed cases. As in Hong Kong, medical workers were among the casualties in Singapore.