High-level Singaporean task force for Sars

Straits Times ^ | By Bertha Henson

[DeaconBenjamin]

Team will look at 'what-if' questions and identify action lines; PM Goh says new challenge is to find ways to live with Sars

Home Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng will head a ministerial task force to deal with all aspects of the severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak, including planning what to do if the worst happens.

Even as the Government moves into highest gear, the message from Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong is this: It is possible to live with Sars, provided organisations and individual Singaporeans do their bit.

Mr Goh met journalists at the Istana yesterday to explain Singapore's approach to tackling Sars, which has already left six people deadhere and infected 103 others.

It has not opted for a 'total shut-down', by closing the borders and all schools, for example, because that would stop all movement in and out of Singapore and mean imprisoning Singaporeans at home.

Given that the bug is not going to disappear any time soon, an 'isolate-and-contain' approach is the better, more practical strategy.

This means Sars victims are placed in a designated hospital, and people who might have come near them are ordered to stay at home, to avoid infecting others if they fall ill.

He acknowledged that the strategy was not fool-proof, 'but I think it's a practical way to move forward'.

In the month since Sars appeared here, schools have been closed, a quarantine law has been invoked to keep those at risk at home, and nurses have been stationed at the airport and cruise centre to check passengers as they arrive from Sars-hit countries.

Speaking on the outbreak at length for the first time, Mr Goh said the authorities would go further, by checking the temperatures of everyone arriving from Sars-affected areas.

Should the need arise, he is even prepared to have checks of the temperatures of all 50,000 people who cross the Causeway daily.

Demonstrating the Government's resolve to tackle Sars, he said that while there is an existing executive group of permanent secretaries reporting to ministers to deal with emergencies, the Cabinet felt that the Sars outbreak was important enough for these top civil servants to report to a ministerial committee.

Apart from the task force chief, Mr Wong, other ministers on the committee are Mr Lim Hng Kiang (Health), Rear-Admiral (NS) Teo Chee Hean (Education), Mr Mah Bow Tan (National Development) and Dr Lee Boon Yang (Manpower).

Four junior ministers - Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam (Education and Trade and Industry), Dr Ng Eng Hen (Manpower and Education), Dr Balaji Sadasivan (Health and Environment) and Mr Khaw Boon Wan (Transport and Information and the Arts) - complete the team of nine.

Their job is to find answers to 'what if' questions, like what to do if residents in an HDB block come down with Sars, where to quarantine foreign workers and whether taxi-drivers and retailers need help because people spooked by Sars are staying home.

'Over time, we hope it can anticipate the worst case scenario and have contingency plans. So that if something happens, we are ready, we don't panic,' Mr Goh said.

'To the best of our ability, we are ready to try and cope with the new problem.'

He would not hazard a guess on how hard the economy would be hit by the effects of Sars, except to say that he expected the economic growth forecast of 2 per cent to 5 per cent for this year to be revised downwards.

If Sars is going to be around for a while, people and organisations have to find ways of living with it, he said.

It calls for new norms of social responsibility, and changing behaviour to protect oneself and others.

Organisations can educate staff about Sars, while people can also change some of their habits, perhaps wearing masks when sick with colds.

He said he understood that Sars has dealt a blow to people's morale, but felt that Singaporeans had the fortitude to face the challenge.

'What we are saying is, this is not the end of the world,' he said.

'There is life. With terrorism, with the Iraq war, with Sars, we are going to live as near normal a life as possible.'

HELLO, NO SHAKING HANDS: Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong put his hands together when he greeted journalist who met him at the Istana yesterday to discuss Sars. And he did the same at the end of the hour-long session.

[DeaconBenjamin]

Life with SARS.