Living with COVID; Singapore strategy raises concerns, hope

SINGAPORE (AP) — Living through the coronavirus pandemic in Singapore, Joys Tan followed the rules that helped the city-state keep its cases low: keeping her distance from others, wearing a mask and getting herself vaccinated.

Nobody in her family had contracted the virus, and it was with confidence that she had dinner at her godmother’s house earlier this month, even with infections rising rapidly, fueled by the delta variant, as the government pushed ahead with a strategy of “living with COVID” as an endemic disease with a gradual relaxation of restrictions.

Two days later, Tan learned her godmother had tested positive for COVID-19, forcing her into precautionary quarantine herself. As she lived in a hotel room away from her husband and 2-year-old son for nearly a week, the 35-year-old graphic designer began to wonder, like many Singaporeans, if living with COVID-19 means living with permanent anxiety about possible infections.

“I am worried all the time, super worried all the time, because of not knowing what lasting effects COVID has on the body; and when you have a young kid, it’s constantly on your mind,” she said. “I’m trying to embrace the endemic mindset that the government is transitioning into, but it’s very hard.”

After almost a year of new daily cases in single, or low double, digits, infections have skyrocketed in the past month, hitting another new record Tuesday with 2,236 and laying bare the challenges of such a strategy. But behind the headline figures, there is evidence the plan is working, with its focus more on the severity of infections and hospitalizations than the number of daily cases.

With about 82% of the population over age 12 fully vaccinated, hospitals have not become overwhelmed, with 98% of new cases either asymptomatic or with mild...