OpinionSurreal life in Singapore, from Covid-19 to ‘circuit breaker’ and migrant workers’ plight

Things are feeling out of place, with local media seeming to bury news of a record number of cases and the enigmatic posts of the prime minister’s wife

There is perhaps no other place on Earth where life is split so acutely and strangely, writes Tan Tarn How

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A man wearing a face mask as a preventive measure against the spread of the Covid-19 coronavirus walks in Singapore’s Raffles Place financial business district. Photo: AFP

Published: 10:00am, 26 Apr 2020Updated: 11:37am, 27 Apr 2020

Every lockdown looks roughly the same from afar – the images of empty streets, grocery queues, ventilated patients and hazmat-suited health care workers have become familiar to all. But the actual experience of confinement is probably very different depending on which city and country we are in.

Here in Singapore, the increasingly severe lockdown feels strange in many ways, as if we are in a dream: surreal.

First is the term “circuit breaker” used for the lockdown introduced by the Singapore government on April 7. Critics have said this de-emphasised the seriousness of the mounting crisis, or the importance of staying home or socially distancing ourselves. Indeed, netizens busily split hairs about whether a circuit breaker equals a real lockdown – this is not Italy, Spain or Britain!

Singapore extends coronavirus ‘circuit breaker’ measures to June 1

But the debate has become moot, as the circuit-breaker measures have been extended until June 1 and the realisation sinks in that – with over 10,000 cases, though thankfully few deaths – Singapore’s infections per capita are closing in on these places. Some people have confused “circuit breaker” with “short circuit”. And unfortunately, the acronym “CB” is also a common Singlish expletive, taken from a Hokkien/Fujian swear word for female genitalia. A field day for pun lovers ensued as they riffed on the acronym and its other vulgar derivations.