by Khush Chopra
Where is the often touted exceptional leadership of this Government in the COVID-19 crisis?
The COVID-19 crisis has undeniably cast a shadow on the People’s Action Party (PAP) Government’s carefully curated myth for infallibility.
Where was the vigilance and initiative when the news broke of people “falling sick with a mysterious pneumonia” in Wuhan on 31 December 2019?
However when you tout a quality of leadership that is so amply deserving of million dollar salaries, surely the expectation is a quality of leadership that delivers cutting edge initiative and vigilance.
Super talents or super headless chickens and blur toads?
Taiwan was vigilant and used their own initiative to set out an outbreak response right from the time they heard about people “falling sick with a mysterious pneumonia” in Wuhan on 31 December 2019.
‘When they heard about patients falling sick with a mysterious pneumonia in the Chinese city of Wuhan on Dec. 31, Taiwan’s health officials fired off an email to the World Health Organization asking for more information.’
However, Taiwan unlike Singapore did not rely on WHO. Their leadership team took the initiative to conduct their own investigation into the problem and immediately set up immigration controls once they realised there was a virus problem on 31 Dec.
On 31 Dec, the island began instituting health screenings for all flights arriving from Wuhan.
Between 13-15 January 13-15, two Taiwanese clinicians, along with experts from Hong Kong and Macau were on one of the first fact-finding teams to visit Wuhan and obtained game changing first hand knowledge that there was already “limited human-to-human transmission” and activated its Central Epidemic Command Center to coordinate an outbreak response even three days before Wuhan was itself locked down.
Why did Singapore not send a similar fact finding Mission? Where was this “outbreak response” in Singapore?
This “hyper-vigilance” and not taking anything for granted helped to safeguard the Taiwanese people from being affected by the first wave of the epidemic.
Where was the boast of vigilance in “I think when you are dealing with an epidemic of a new virus, you are never complacent about it.“ Or the touted assume and be prepared for the worst stance of the supposedly “very very” serious Singapore Government? Or the medical expertise in our leadership team who have been quoted as saying : “Let me speak as a doctor. This is a new virus. It is very dangerous and wishful to believe that it will behave according to previous viruses”…..
You will remember a certain CNBC interview where Singapore was congratulated as the “gold standard”.
Where was all this “never complacent about it” in the steps this Government took initially and for that matter since then todate?
Singapore was not so vigilant and we are paying the price for such failures and missteps today.
Why did our million dollar ministers not have the gumption or initiative to take immediate action?
Where were the necessary immigration controls in the crucial first days to stave off the infection?
The COVID-19 crisis exposes the lie of the PAP myth of quality thread bare for all to see.
I have confined myself here only to the very first days of the crisis now long past. The litany of missteps and failures that have ensued since those early days will be dealt with at the appropriate juncture as it is not my intention to undermine the ongoing efforts of the Government to deal with the crisis today for which I remain grateful even if critical.
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