The southeast Asian city-state of Singapore, one of the world’s most developed nations, has been recognized for setting the “gold standard” in COVID-19 detection and prevention.
It achieves this in part through an aggressive “contact tracing” effort in which every individual who’s come in contact with an infected person is tracked down.
The process is laborious, and police investigators are fully involved.
While praised by officials worldwide, contact tracing would be difficult to implement in other nations.
But Singapore has a longstanding historic of proactive public-health interventions.
This includes heavily regulating its street vendors.
Unlike other countries in the region, Singapore’s “street” vendors are banned from actually operating on the streets.
Heavily regulated and inspected, they still sell street food, but indoors.
The result is an influential food culture in which some street-food stands have even earned Michelin stars.
Sources: BBC News — “Singapore has moved all its hawkers indoors”; “The detectives racing to contain the virus in Singapore”