IN ONE speech after another, Singapore's ministers have been emphasising that the country will not simply return to a pre-Covid-19 way of life, economically or socially. The degree to which their audience has truly absorbed this, however, is less clear.

Across the world, at various stages of the pandemic, there have been examples of blithe behaviour: people gathering in parks or on beaches despite safe-distancing measures in place, or crowding at food outlets when they reopened.

In Singapore, while compliance with "circuit breaker" and social-distancing measures has been generally high - aided by widespread enforcement efforts - some incidents still make the news. Yet the two-month circuit breaker, while undeniably painful for many businesses and workers, was still more of a sprint, or at most a middle-distance run. The national effort against Covid-19 is an ultra-marathon - indeed, perhaps a long-distance cross-country trek, a journey that will end in very different territory.