Lee Kuan Yew is alive and well, and for a moment during Thursday's National Day Parade, one could hear Singapore as a whole heave an almost audible sigh of relief.
The elder statesman's grand entrance at the NDP ceremony held at Marina Bay sparked thunderous applause from the 26,000 spectators in attendance, and quite possibly from the hundreds of thousands also watching on television.
[Slideshow: Singapore's National Day Parade]
More importantly, it finally put to bed week-long rumours surrounding the health and condition of the 88-year-old.
A post on Yahoo! Singapore's Facebook wall with a screengrab of a smiling Lee dressed in a red Team Singapore polo shirt sparked an outpouring of emotion, relief and happiness.
As of 1:30pm on Friday, the post had garnered more than 10,400 “likes” and over 700 comments.
Wrote Sandra Tan, “So happy to see [former] Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew looking good at the NDP! The cheer and applause when he emerged at theNDP is undeniable".
Another Facebook user, Marcus Goh agreed and wrote that “Seeing [Lee] makes me shed tears of happiness”.
In the past week, rumours swirled online and offline that the former Singapore Prime Minister'shealth was fading quickly. Day by day, the speculation grew stronger and wilder.
It's not certain how the rumours started but one of the first tweets referring to Lee's health was a tweet on Aug 7th from a user called @izreloaded, who claimed "high-level" sources had told him Lee's health was "critical" and that "several government agencies had been put on standby".