Yesterday, 30 more confirmed cases of H1N1 flu were reported, bringing the total to 629. With a majority of new cases now locally acquired, it is clear that community spread is inevitable.

In a prescient statement last Tuesday, Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan said, “We have crossed the tipping point, beyond which local transmissions will grow rapidly.” Since then, the government has changed its erstwhile strategy of border control and contact tracing to detecting and prioritizing “high-risk” patients.

This has caused confusion amongst Singaporeans. Yesterday, A Madam Ong Tze Lin wrote into the Straits Times Forum to enquire as to why her husband was not even tested for H1N1 despite developing indicative symptoms and having possibly come into contact with carriers in the Maju Camp cluster.

The Ministry of Health replied to say, “We are… moving from containment to mitigation phase… the definition of ‘close contacts’ and the need for laboratory testing of ‘close contacts’ are progressively being tightened… In the case of Madam Ong's husband, the doctor must have decided his exposure was very low.”