A safe-distancing enforcement officer watches those lining up at a food court in Singapore on April 18.
A comparison with countries with a similar-sized population shows a stark difference – Denmark’s death rate is around 3%, while Finland’s is around 4%. While the parameters of the disease continue to be studied as the pandemic progresses, current global trends suggest its impact has been less severe for younger people, many of whom show few or no symptoms.Singapore has managed to mitigate the spread of the virus via early detection using aggressive contact tracing and testing that won praise from the World Health Organization .
“The more we diagnose, then the lower the mortality rate is,” said Hsu Li Yang at Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health at National University of Singapore.The pre-emptive approach has also applied to treatment. Covid-19 patients above the age of 45 years or with underlying conditions that make them vulnerable are cared for in hospital even if they are otherwise well, doctors said.
This prevented the healthcare system from being overwhelmed so that attention and resources could be focused on the more severe cases, doctors said.