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by noobermin 2255 days ago
Tbh, SG should have never let people come particularly from countries with covid outbreaks during March. While spreading across the dorms is a big part of the internal spreading, it's clear the outbreak that started in March were clusters involving people coming to sg from abroad.

Almost everyone shut down travel from China (particularly Wuhan) but no one shut down travel from Europe during March. Biggest mistake ever. I don't know enough if it was tourists or whether it was returning Singaporeans but they should have instructed them to remain where they were for the sake of the country.
2 comments
teruakohatu 2255 days ago
> but no one shut down travel from Europe during March. Biggest mistake ever

The USA did shut their border to a lot of Europe in early March. But at the time the WHO opposed border closure.

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RobAtticus 2255 days ago
Kind of - it closed the borders for Europeans traveling to the US, but did little to manage Americans returning from abroad. Given March is winter in the US (thus less tourism), I would imagine the majority of Europe -> US traffic at the time is Americans returning home, that's a rather weak closure.
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hadtodoit 2255 days ago
I think you are diminishing the amount of traffic between Europe and US on any given day. Closing the borders to Europe may very well have saved us from catastrophe. Numbers exploded everywhere in March.
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lurquer 2254 days ago
>I would imagine the majority of Europe -> US traffic at the time is Americans returning home, that's a rather weak closure.

Over 10 million a year from Germany, Italy, Spain, France, and UK alone. Just tourist visas.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism_in_the_United_States#V...

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RobAtticus 2254 days ago
>at the time

My point was that tourism to the US is probably not uniform throughout the year, and March is likely on the lower end of tourism. Hence the ratio of traffic being Americans returning home is higher.

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lokedhs 2255 days ago
The vast majority of people entering Singapore in March were Singapore citizens returning. A lot of them were students who came back because the schools had closed.

The mistake was not letting them it, but to let them self-quarantine at home. This led to them infecting other family members who then spread it further.

This has changed now as anyone entering Singapore has to be quarantined in a separate facility.

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noobermin 2254 days ago
Why is letting them stay where they were an issue? The country (an isolated island, Palau) where my parents are from did that even for students and it's kept covid19 from reaching there till now. Given their situation, they can't afford any cases at all until there's a vaccine. I get you care about your citizens abroad but it's clear that's where all the hotspots in sg turned up in March.
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lokedhs 2254 days ago
Because not letting your own citizens enter your country is something very few countries do willfully.

As I mentioned in the previous post, they now quarantine them in dedicated facilities for 2 weeks.

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