Letters | Singapore bubble: don’t slam ‘living with Covid’, raise Hong Kong vaccines game

Hong Kong legislators raising concerns about Singaporean ministers advocating ‘living with Covid’ ignore the city state’s high vaccination rate and strong social distancing measures

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Singapore’s financial district across the Marina Bay forms the backdrop as a cyclist rides along on July 6. Photo: EPA-EFE

Published: 6:50am, 16 Jul 2021Updated: 6:50am, 16 Jul 2021

I would like to express my clear disappointment with local legislators’ knee-jerk reaction to Singaporean ministers talking about “living with Covid”, which occupied much media space on Saturday.

I am sure our legislators have not tried to carefully glean information about the actual Covid-19 situation in Singapore.

First of all, social-distancing measures there right now are overall sterner than in Hong Kong. Second, the vaccination rate in Singapore is far higher – people who have received a first dose number nearly 70 per cent and those fully vaccinated are close to 40 per cent: thereby Singapore is confidently in a position to contemplate the vision of “living with Covid”.

The correct and serious response of Hong Kong would be to raise the vaccination rate to get close to the Singaporean figures, to enable Hong Kong to start thinking bigger. It is disappointing to read about a laggard Hong Kong hysterically criticising the better-performing Singapore’s bolder thinking.

Any social leader who doesn’t make increasing the local vaccination rate a prime call in media discussions on the pandemic certainly helps no one.

The even better vaccination figures in Britain enabled the Boris Johnson government to take a gamble. Only time will tell if Prime Minister Johnson’s move will trigger any catastrophe. But places with vaccination figures that do not remotely compare probably have no right to comment on the British move.