How Covid-19 Impacted Singapore 1

How Covid-19 Impacted Singapore

How Covid-19 Impacted Singapore 2

Community service; as the name implies, it is a selfless act performed by one person or a

group of individuals for the benefit of their community or institutions. Personally, I believe that

community service should be based on volunteerism rather than being imposed into the

educational curriculum.

Introduction

On April 7, 2020, Singapore deployed their own lockdown strategy known as the circuit

breaker and social distance approach, which lasted for around 10 weeks. The lockdowns have

brought sluggish growth to Singapore financially. With such a short period of time, the economy

nearly came to a complete halt. For example, the F&B sectors have suffered because of these

lockdown measures since they have lost revenue from walk-in customers to their establishments.

All F&B industries in Singapore were affected by the lockdown, especially the intermediate and

lower tier business, such as the neighborhood hawkers near our houses and small sized enterprise

with limited working funds.

The Negatives

With lockdowns and social distancing measures in place, consumers can only order food

online. In response, many hawkers had to innovate and sustain their revenue by using and setup

digital food catering systems to stay in business. These systems implementation is not without

difficulties. Some business owners of the older generation may lack the education, and

information technology (IT) savviness, understanding, or exposure to this type of technology and

have a hard time adapting. Small businesses will have to fork out extra cash for equipment and

training despite making very minimal profits. To make matters worse, the lack of tourists further

reduced the revenue for small businesses. This resulted in many hawkers, café or businesses

shutting down during lockdown.

How Covid-19 Impacted Singapore 3

The airline and tourism sectors were severely impacted by Singapore's travel restrictions

and bans on selected nations. Due to planes being grounded for months, workers in the tourism

industry, including flight attendants, were forced to accept other job offers like food delivery or

other low-paying professions to make ends meet. Some remained jobless for two years or more,

whilst others lost employment permanently. This was evidence by Singapore Airlines (SIA)

laying off 1,900 employees on September 10, 2020. Despite Singapore's efforts to relax

pandemic restrictions, the number of flights and passengers is still a small portion of what it was

before the pandemic.

Real World Illustration

We wouldn't have to search very far to find a real-world illustration of a prolonged

lockdown. China has announced a Zero Covid strategy as of June 2020. This would imply that if

there is a positive case or anyone who was suspected of being sick, the entire district would need

to be tested for Covid-19. The tracking is done through its residents' health app on their mobile

phones. If a person adheres to the health application “green” code, they are able to travel and

shop for daily necessity at their own convenience. However, if somebody becomes sick, their

health application will display a “red” code, and the entire residential community affected will be

place under lockdown and their health code on the phones will change from green to red.

Affected residents will have to go through a series of nucleic acid testing until their health

application becomes green again.

The mounting expense of medical supplies and test kits required to test the nation's

millions of citizens each day had a negative impact on the economy. With the zero covid strategy,

residents found it challenging to obtain food and water. Irresponsible business owners also

increased the price of daily necessity due to the strict lockdown causing additional stress to the
How Covid-19 Impacted Singapore 4

residences around the community. To acquire their daily essentials, several homes have resorted

to breaching the lockdown order. Some provincial governments have resorted to welding and

fastening residents' doors in an effort to combat the breach. These series of actions and events led

to societal discontent, and demonstrations were frequent occurrences.

Conclusion

Personally, I find that lockdowns are more detrimental than beneficial. Lockdowns

should not be viewed as a long-term solution to the prevention of infectious diseases, but rather

as a temporary strategy for disease control. This method shouldn't be used carelessly because it

will have a big financial impact on all areas of Singapore. Alternative strategies will need to be

explored if strains of virus mutate which causes longer lead time to control.
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References

Auto, H. (2020, September 10). 2,400 sia staff affected by job cuts amid covid-19 fallout. The

Straits Times. Retrieved October 23, 2022, from

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/sia-announces-job-cuts-for-pilots-cabin-crew-as-

business-battered-by-covid-19

Observer, C. (2022, October 20). China's middle class is disappearing, 3.1m businesses written

off | shanghai lockdown again. YouTube. Retrieved October 23, 2022, from

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwfN2oSM39I

Stevenson, A. (2022, October 16). China is sticking to its 'zero covid' policy. The New York

Times. Retrieved October 23, 2022, from

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/16/world/asia/china-is-sticking-to-its-zero-covid-

policy.html

Wikimedia Foundation. (2022, August 24). 2020–21 Singapore Circuit breaker measures.

Wikipedia. Retrieved October 23, 2022, from

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020%E2%80%9321_Singapore_circuit_breaker_measures

World Health Organization. (n.d.). Archived: Who timeline - covid-19. World Health

Organization. Retrieved October 23, 2022, from https://www.who.int/news/item/27-04-

2020-who-timeline---covid-19