Does anyone remember Michael Fay? He was that American kid who got caned 4 times in the butt in 1994 for vandalizing cars in Singapore. He says he only stole road signs though. At the time, there was this whole uproar in the United States because everyone thought that being caned for stealing road signs was harsh. It was on 60 Minutes, and I remember as a kid wondering why President Clinton himself had to take time out of his busy day to ask that some kid not be spanked. After the ordeal, to the dismay of Americans who like to sit, Fay had said it was hard to sit for a few days after the corporal punishment. Everyone oohed and ahhed and owwed. I remember thinking that Singapore must be a safe country if they’re going to punish theft like that. “That’s Singapore,” was my impression as a kid. Harsh, but takes things seriously.

The last we heard of Fay, he was a slots manager in Cincinnati, and so we’ve come full circle.

Turns out Singapore still takes things quite seriously, in ways that Westerners still find harsh and distasteful. They’ve been draconian in their management of the pandemic within their borders. You wouldn’t know it from the dry case chart though, which looks like this:

Here’s the same chart though, disaggregated by the BBC between “community” and “dorms”, which basically means Singaporeans and foreign workers.