[Parody]: What’s the point behind the question? (CCS face masks version).

[Parody]: What’s the point behind the question? (CCS face masks version).


Parliamentary exchange 2: Pritam and Chan Chun Sing
Later on, after other MPs had asked questions, Pritam rose again to speak.

“Sir, my original parliamentary question really if more face masks reduce Wuhan virus transmission. Minister Lawrence WONG and K Shanmugam says that healthy people shouldn't wear face asks.


And my question really is, can we expect in future either by way of Parliamentary decree or by the government on its own accord, distributing many more face asks to Singaporeans and PRs.

If the government’s approach is no, we will not provide more face masks, can the Minister please share that detail with us here. It is pointless for us to keep asking for that supply if the government is not going to provide it.”

Minister for Trade and Industry Chan Chun Sing said in response: “Mr Deputy Speaker, sir, I don’t think we have anything to hide. We have enough facemasks.”

Pritam then asked, “Well, sir, if that’s the case, then if face masks were given out freely, would we have fewer diagnosed Wuhan virus cases than we have now and prevented the cases at the Lavender Street health products shop? "

Chan Chun Sing: What’s the point behind the question?
Chan then said:

“We can get you the facemasks. But let me say this. What is the point behind the question? First, has uncontrolled local transmission happened to date with our efforts? The answer is a resounding ‘no’. Only one person, a rarity got infected locally from an unknown source. Are our infection recovery rates lower than China? Yes, and our death rate is lower than many other countries. Those are proof points to show that we are doing right by Singaporeans because of our tremendous past investment in tertiary care hospitals with many ICU wards, but this approach cannot continue because our tax payers are exhausted and protesting about the coming GST increase.

But I’m always very cautious about this constant divide, wear masks vs don't wear masks. The insinuation seems to be that somehow masks wearing is better. I’ve just spent the last half an hour explaining and sharing with this House how we are working hard to make sure Singaporeans get their facts right. It’s not the masks availability, what is pivotal  is the overall health and fitness of the population that we want to invest money in that moving forward.

And I would like to remind this House. The ultimate determinant of whether an Wuhan virus succumbs and dies is his original state of health when he begins to show symptoms. Those with long standing chronic conditions like diabetes, cholesterol, are obese and and hypertensive usually develop complications and die as a consequence, and raise a bomb in health care consumption costs regardless of result, even worse for those who are chair bound or receiving careshield-life payouts because they need assistance with at least 3 activities of daily living. The ultimate strategy is to ensure that everyone maintains high hygiene standards, has proper sleep, exercise and a balanced lifestyle so that our resistance to the virus is always high and we readily get over such respiratory infections promptly with our own immunity. Enough for us to not get so paranoid and hysterical everytime somebody sneezes or coughs and to achieve our city in a rainforest vision so gen Z tourists and policy makers all over the world gather here to learn how to improve personal and  population health and fitness and even even smokers World wide come here to kick their unhealthy smoking habits.

That is the long term result that we would like to achieve in Singapore in the long run.




Parliamentary debate source : https://mothership.sg/2020/01/pritam-singh-chan-chun-singh-employment-stats/