SINGAPORE — Fear can do more harm than the spreading coronavirus, Singapore’s prime minister said on Saturday, a day after the city-state raised its alert level, prompting residents to clear out supermarket shelves of rice, noodles and toilet paper. Singapore raised its response to “orange” – the same as during the 2003 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak and the 2009 H1N1 influenza, which indicates the virus is severe and passes easily between persons. We are not locking down the city or confining everybody to stay at home,” Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said. While the epidemic began in Wuhan in China, it has been spreading rapidly in other countries and sparking wider precautionary measures. Britain has included the city-state in a list of countries from which returning travelers who developed symptoms should self-isolate, while Kuwait has asked its citizens not to travel to Singapore.

Source: National Post February 08, 2020 12:11 UTC