SINGAPORE is a small country and an island nation to boot. But it is also a major commercial, tourism and transport hub that receives more than three times its population in visitors each year. So it is remarkable that at the time of writing it has recorded just 558 cases of Covid-19 and two deaths, with limited community transmission. The city state’s containment of the outbreak has become a global model. “The short-term costs of containment look high, but they’re much lower than the long-term costs of non-containment,” says Annelies Wilder-Smith of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine…

This article first appeared in the New Statesman on 25 March 2020. To continue reading, click here.