Until there are treatments that can be used against serious cases (like Roche/Regeneron cocktail that worked against Wuhan variant, or Tamiflu used against SARS), saying ‘endemic’ is a joke.
Unless we have the hospital capacity then also cannot go endemic.
Even community care facilities which are just dormitories for sick Sinkies are full.
Our HDB and multi generational household is not suitable for home recovery. All those immigrant communities in AMDK countries who even in big houses have multi generations suffered more greatly that parent + children households and even more greatly than BBFA only households.
This is why we can't copy UK and USA, our population density means delta spreads even quicker.
Even with mild symptoms staying at home, everyone needs to be quarantined until the household is clear, if you have a household of 6 and it goes from 1 member to another every 5 days then it will take 30 days plus the last 10 days recovery time, so 40 days before that household can return to normality.
Start applying that situation across Singapore and very soon you are going to have significant numbers of households isolating at home, unable to work. Close contacts via TT contacted and isolated, same for them.
Then we have a significant percentage of the population basically under a rolling lockdown.
The bus driver shortages are just the tip of the iceberg.
What happens when significant numbers of supermarket workers, healthcare workers, taxi drivers, delivery drivers all confined at home. Shops will have to shut, deliveries will stop, healthcare service levels reduced. It will be worse than lockdown because essential services will cease to operate. Who is going to pay for the salaries of those not just infected but told to isolate at home for extended periods of time ?
The pingdemic which is the UK equivalent of what we are brewing here has basically shut down large parts of their economy.
Let's not make the same mistake as the UK and plan ahead the consequences of large sections of the population who work for essential services being stuck at home in the coming month.