Travel + Leisure - India & South Asia
THE SECOND WAVE
Singapore’s model of liberal testing and contact tracing was hailed by the world. But then it saw a second surge of cases and resorted to a strict circuit-breaker mode. Having recently moved to the city-state, LISA RAY writes of her surreal new life.
IPULLED ON MY SHORTS and sneakers, and patted sunscreen across the bridge of my nose, for my daily coffee run. I was in the lift and halfway to the ground floor when I realised I had forgotten it: my governmentissued, reusable 3-ply mask. For the foreseeable future, Singaporeans have to leave home with half their faces covered, as masking up has become a mandatory move since April 16. You will be fined for flashing your full face: up to SGD 10,000 and up to six months in jail. Breaching safe distancing measures will also earn you a fine. These are part of the nationwide circuit-breaker measures to curb a second surge in COVID-19 cases.
My family and I moved to Singapore from Mumbai in early February. We read articles about this strange, new malady but travel restrictions and lockdowns were still remote possibilities. Singapore’s response to the novel coronavirus was upheld by many as a gold standard. Liberal testing, contact tracing, hospitalising positive cases, and regular communication from the government softened the psychological blow of a public health crisis. We chose a condo in Robertson Quay, a riverside neighbourhood converted from a historical wharf. I knew I would be working on a new book and easy access to a pleasant promenade where I could be schooled through any lack of inspiration by a brisk walk under weeping willows and a fortifying coffee, was prized. For my 22-month-old daughters, who have mature palates and aspire to refined activities, regular outings for Mexican, Mediterranean, and Japanese food became nightly rituals, and for a while, they gave us the desired illusion of control, safety, and certainty.
But I have a personal and nuanced exploration of perilous circumstances. So, even as I explored my new city, a feeling of dissonance arose. It was impossible to ignore the disrupted routines, the stressors, the deaths, and misery emanating in a queasy glow from my laptop screen. Then came a second spike in cases, this time from people returning from Europe and North America. I knew that things would change in our temporary bucolic reality by the Singapore River; it was simply a matter of when. By the end of March, grabbing drinks
with friends was not conducive to safe distancing. We withdrew our girls from play-school, and
Jason [Ray’s husband] coaxed me to discontinue yoga classes outside our home. On one of our last evenings out, we played a round of ‘What’s your biggest fear?’ with another couple. “That I am a carrier,” said Ramses, who works for Bloomberg and has elderly parents in Texas. “That I pass on the coronavirus to someone vulnerable, like you.”
I was at Kinokuniya, the Aladdin’s Cave of bookstores in Singapore, the day it was announced. Singapore’s Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong, shared the circuit-breaker measures effective April 7 in a widely televised speech, giving us two days to assemble a wild and provisional haven. I hefted my bag of Rebecca Solnit books and broke stride, brushing past others on the escalators. Down, down I went to the Takashimaya supermarket, my brain puzzling over what to buy. “Salmon,” my maternal brain blared. My girls, Sufi and Soleil, love the omega-rich delicacy, and it was my duty to provide it. I swung through crowds, throwing milk, bread, and noodles in baskets with an obscure annoyance at having to share personal space. Singapore is nothing if not orderly. If this were any other city, I may have been tempted to find a way to circumnavigate the queue. But Singapore lulls you into a state of compliance, so I placed my toes on the red tape and waited, while ‘clean ambassadors’ patrolled the line, reminding us to “queue one metre apart”.
Under the new rules, while open air exercise is encouraged, you may only do so alone or with someone who lives with you. “Saw the new regulations?” I message my friend Kauveri before an evening walk. “Yup.” She sends me a sad emoticon. But we are fortunate, and on my daily walk, I remind my masked self that right now, my biggest threat is the crowd of kids learning to rollerblade on the promenade. I’m staring down a future without foreseeable travel, so I’ve brought the traveller’s eye to my neighbourhood. It’s easy to categorise people through a window, but these days, I blend into the stream of distracted dads, older couples, a man walking with his African grey parrot perched on his shoulder. Wait, what?
On my walk, I’m happy to observe local businesses adapt, just like people. Some of the restaurants have set up stalls to sell fruits and vegetables, and even bottles of scotch from their pantry, I imagine. I pause at Boomerang, an Australian pub, to buy industrial-size tubs of pancake mix. While I step back in an uneasy approximation of one metre of distancing, I notice something even more interesting: ‘Grab and Go: Double Margaritas and Daiquiris at 12 bucks a pop’.
To fill my eyes with the sky, I walk further along the river than usual. As I enter Kim Seng Park, I hear an odd sound, a thin yet delighted cry from the water. A family of otters is swimming across the river. I watch their fluid movements as they swim to the opposite shore, slicked heads flashing in the sun. As they play and slide against one another in exultant squeaks, I am taken hostage by the moment. I had forgotten, the ending and beginning of every day are astronomical events. But that sense of wonder has been returned by calamity. Watching the otters, I cannot help but wonder: when will we emerge on the opposite shore?