
In Singapore, Quarantine Comes with Sea View, Room Service - cow9
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-28/in-singapore-quarantine-comes-with-a-sea-view-and-room-service
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kenneth
I'm in Singapore

That girl got lucky. Most people end up in a cheap service apartment. You get
assigned something and have no choice. I have a few friends who are currently
in less luxurious accomodations

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Cthulhu_
Is it just me or does this kinda sound like an advertisement for the tourist
industry? Call me cynical.

I mean yeah people are being put up in hotels because it makes sense.

~~~
dannyr
Or maybe the government just cares for its residents. Getting stuck in a room
for 2 weeks is not easy. Govt is just trying to make it more tolerable.

~~~
yannikyeo
Its one way the Singapore government is helping the tourism industry. No
tourists are allowed in, there are many empty rooms.

~~~
hatenberg
This. They also housed 100+k Malaysian commuters locked out of JB when the
causeway was closed in local hotels.

Win win win for workers, employers and the country

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nl
In Australia a similar scheme (almost exactly the same by the look of it) has
recently been implemented.

Needless to say, people complained about being confined to their 4 or 5 star
hotel room.

I understand the boredom, but people had a week to get back to Australia after
the government recommended it, and it seems a decent trade off between
individual freedoms and killing people. For context, in Australia over 50% of
the current covid-19 cases are from people returning from overseas[1]

[1] [https://www.health.gov.au/news/health-alerts/novel-
coronavir...](https://www.health.gov.au/news/health-alerts/novel-
coronavirus-2019-ncov-health-alert/coronavirus-covid-19-current-situation-and-
case-numbers) (scroll down or search for "acquired overseas")

~~~
throwaway2474
The government keeps repeating the claim that most cases have been acquired
overseas, but testing criteria in every state explicitly only include people
who have returned from overseas or have had known contact with a confirmed
case (up until a few days ago when it was very slightly broadened). The stats
reflect the testing criteria, not the true distribution here.

~~~
nl
Whilst it's a common complaint that the testing criteria isn't wide enough,
Australia is testing more than most countries (3rd in the world per population
at the end of last week), and there are limited numbers of the tests
available.

There's also not much evidence that significant numbers of cases are being
missed.

Outside NSW there is hardly any community transmission from unknown sources
(probably less than 50 cases in the whole country). We'd see that if we were
missing cases.

In NSW the criteria was expanded as soon as there was evidence of wider
community transmission. Victoria started random testing this week too.

IMHO this was a reasonable trade-off between limited test availability and
risk.

I'd also note that there are 1.5 blood (antibody) tests being rolled out this
week across Australia. That should give us insights into anything that has
been missed.

~~~
jddj
They've been getting broader testing underway and are employing it where there
seem to be community breakouts, but I have to agree with your parent poster.
There has been community transmission, so stressing so strongly that travelers
are the vector lead to complacency.

The messaging was bad. If you tell people over and over that it's only the
travelers (but you only test the travelers) and downplay the community aspect
then you're misrepresenting the risk.

People were, until very recently, continuing to host wine and dinner parties
so long as no recent travelers were present. With travelers who arrived the
day before the mandatory quarantine came into effect treated as being safe to
invite.

People aren't rational in these situations, you can't give them such an easy
mental shortcut or they'll take it every time.

Many Australians were coming home from countries with broader (at the time)
testing, more extensive contact tracing and still fewer cases than Australia,
but the community's eye was still being actively trained on _them
specifically_ , and not simply _people_ as the primary vector.

~~~
nl
I don't think anyone has said "it's only travellers".

But yes, they absolutely present the biggest risk. Until March 23 (I think?
Something like that) every single local transmission in Australia had been
traced back to a traveller or a connection to one.

The OP said "The stats reflect the testing criteria, not the true distribution
here" and my argument is that actually the stats are probably pretty accurate
and given how well tracing has worked and the limits on the number of tests
available the criteria was pretty reasonable.

~~~
jddj
Sorry, you're right. The messaging was that it's primarily the travelers.

My feeling is that the quarantines definitely should have gone ahead, but in
justifying them to the public the govt. seemed to place a little too much
emphasis, such that people interpreted (as they do, in a crisis) _most
significant_ risk as _only risk_.

~~~
nl
I think the government had a bunch of libertarians in their ear complaining
about "infringing on our freedom" to lock people in an enforced quarantine.

This sounds ridiculous, but I know someone who said "This is a nightmare!
Australia has taken away all freedoms" in response to the announcement.

In that context (and I can well believe the LNP would have people like this) I
think the emphasis on "the forced quarantine is limited to travellers" makes
sense.

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abjecton
This kind of publicity is good for tourism . I guess when the pandemic is over
tourists will be rushing to Singapore with a vengeance.

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enitihas
So rich people, who were traveling around the world, are being provided
luxurious isolation facilities by the government, while the poor, who didn't
venture out of their country, will have to now practice "social distancing"
mostly on their own cost. Off course these are sensible actions to take in the
current time, but this just feels weird.

~~~
kenneth
If you're going to make ridiculous and nonsensical political jabs like this at
least be slightly informed.

1) There is no lockdown / shelter-in-place / quarantine in Singapore. Normal
residents can go about their daily lives as usual, with a few restrictions for
crowd control and a lot of temperature checks.

2) Being stuck in a hotel room for two weeks, no matter how luxurious, is a
lot less pleasant than being able to carry on with your life as usual.

3) This is done because returnees from the US and UK pose a high risk to
Singaporean, and if they are quarantined at home with family that risks
spreading it to family and then into society.

Writing this from a cafe by the river in Singapore, not locked into my apt.
It's a beautiful day today with lots of people walking around.

~~~
ralfn
The quality of governance in Singapore makes even a spoiled dutch man like me
jealous.

Would be even cooler if they found a way to maximize personal liberties too
(referring to the freedom of expression, religion and sexuality). It's hard to
see why it couldn't just embrace those. I doubt these freedoms are the gateway
drug to democracy they fear it is.

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kenneth
You're pretty free in terms of expression, religion, and sexuality here. In
fact, it's probably one of the most sexually liberal places in Asia. Hell,
prostitution is even legal here.

You do need to follow the rules though or face incredibly harsh punishments
for any crimes (including drugs etc).

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throwaway4787
I like stories about how Singaporeans are doing well because unlike with
Scandinavian countries the woodwork-crawlers can't use the muddy and dark-
implications heavy "homogenous population" argument.

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yobin
Instead they can point to how well fascism works!

