• A year on, task force co-chairs Gan Kim Yong and Lawrence Wong gave inside look into highs and lows of tackling Covid-19
• Greatest challenge was in managing people’s changing expectations while staying the course, they said
• Public mood shifted wildly between tightening and loosening safety measures, for example
• Task force had to make judgement calls in uncertain decisions such as having a lockdown
• In the end, collaboration between public and private sectors and community turned the tide for Singapore

SINGAPORE — At the start of last year, when Singapore was knee-deep in her battle against Covid-19, the public had clamoured for the Government to impose tougher measures to stop the deadly coronavirus, Education Minister Lawrence Wong recalled.

“We had to tell people: No, look, this is a long fight, it’s a marathon, and our measures are based on data,” the co-chair of the Government’s Covid-19 task force said.

Then, in October when there were low numbers of infections, the public mood shifted quickly towards opening up sooner, with many egging the officials to move into Phase Three, the final phase of the nation’s gradual reopening after the circuit breaker or partial lockdown in April and May.

By then, Mr Wong and his fellow co-chair, Health Minister Gan Kim Yong, had to again convince people, only this time the message was the opposite — that the dangers of another outbreak were still present.

Recounting their experiences in an interview with the media at the National Press Centre nearly one year after the task force was first convened, both Cabinet ministers gave an inside look into the highs and lows of their mission in beating Covid-19.

This volatile public mood and the pressure to roll out protective measures solely based on public opinion was the most challenging part of leading Singapore’s strategy to overcome Covid-19, Mr Wong said.

“In that kind of environment where the public mood gets caught up very easily and very quickly — based on the latest thing that gets viral, the latest headlines and the latest case counts — how do we maintain a steady course?

“Whatever we do, it ultimately has to be based on scientific evidence, data and expert opinions, and then we have to explain that to the public and get support for these measures,” he said.

Mr Gan said that the challenge of public communications was why both he and Mr Wong led many press conferences to explain these measures. 

It is also why Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong had to make several televised addresses to persuade Singaporeans directly, he added.

‘LITTLE DID WE KNOW’

The task force was formed on Jan 22 last year, a day before the first case — a traveller from Wuhan, China — was diagnosed with Covid-19 in Singapore.

Mr Gan said: “Little did we know that we had only one day of advanced preparations (before the virus arrived)… Ever since then, this National Press Centre has more or less become our second home.” 

The centre, located at the Ministry for Communications and Information, is where both ministers held regular meetings over the past year to address the public.

Compared with the situation now, the biggest problem then was that not much was known about the novel coronavirus.

Mr Gan said the task force thought that Covid-19 was similar to the severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars), which caused an epidemic in Singapore in 2003.

“Very quickly, we found out that the two coronaviruses were not similar… We had to keep adjusting our approach and strategy and keep moving forward. And it is not just the Ministry of Health doing it, we need to move the entire whole-of-government machinery to implement these changes,” Mr Gan said.

Mr Wong recalled how the authorities had limited key resources back then — manpower was tight and there were few test kits on hand. Each deployment of resources to one particular area deprives resources from another.

“What could we have done better? We would have done what we are doing today in the dorms,” he said, referring to the rapid disease transmission in migrant worker dormitories.

“We would be putting everyone on a sort of regular testing regime, and would have taken far more measures than we did at the time.”

The lack of knowledge about the virus, as well as the lack of resources, meant that the two co-chairs had to make judgement calls in difficult decisions. 

“It’s a question (not only about wanting) to do something, but whether you have the ability to carry it out and execute it,” Mr Wong said.

He brought up the example of how there would be a raft of ideas and suggestions each time the task force briefs the Cabinet on the measures needed to tackle Covid-19.

In the end, it was PM Lee who told him: “We can give you ideas, but in the end, you have to decide what can be executed, what can be implemented.”

THE MIGRANT WORKERS SITUATION

Looking back, Mr Wong said that one particular decision they had to make was to carry out Singapore’s circuit breaker to try and break the chains of viral transmission at the time.

“When we entered into a circuit breaker, there were people who said that’s too drastic, there were some who said that it’s necessary and asked why we did not do it earlier on. It’s a judgement call.”

Several critics have noted that Singapore should have imposed travel bans sooner, which would have helped prevent viral seeding in the community from imported cases such as returning Singaporean students. 

Others said that the circuit breaker should have been timed earlier, which would have allowed the authorities the wherewithal to respond to the mounting crisis in the migrant worker dormitories.

Mr Wong said that there were many factors to consider when imposing the circuit breaker — how it may impact people’s well-being, the vulnerable and the seniors, and whether it would do more harm than good in slowing down the transmission.

“In the end, you can debate about whether we could have done it earlier or could have been stricter (in our measures), but I think the timing (of the lockdown) wasn’t that far off, and it was effective in slowing down the transmission and enabling us to keep things under control.”

When asked what was his most memorable moment in the past year, he said that there were too many to boil down to a single incident.

He recalled how the Government, private sector and community partners rallied together to help mitigate the situation in the dormitories, starting up community care facilities in a short time.

“They made the impossible possible and it was truly a turning point. If they had not done this, Singapore’s trajectory through Covid-19 would have been quite different. So that was very remarkable for me,” Mr Wong said.

Mr Gan said that he, too, was surprised at the speed that these facilities were put together at first and also later on when the capacity had to be expanded to accommodate more infected and recovering patients from the dormitories.

Mr Gan said in Mandarin of his first visit to the facilities at the Singapore Expo and the Changi Exhibition Centre: “I thought to myself, ‘This is such a large place, I’m sure it will be enough’. In the end, it wasn’t enough. 

"If there weren’t enough beds, we could be like countries whose healthcare systems were overwhelmed. 

“But in that short time, everyone was able to scale up the facilities quickly — it was extremely heartening for me to see that.”