Singapore earned early plaudits for its management of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the government’s failure to pay attention to the health of the country’s sizable foreign worker population and its refusal to heed the repeated warnings from infectious disease experts and advocacy groups has led to a major outbreak in cramped dormitories and a lockdown of the entire country.

Beginning in January 2020, the world has struggled to contain COVID-19 pandemic. Initially lauded as the “gold standard” for containment of the pandemic, Singapore was suddenly confronted with a massive outbreak of infection in the migrant worker dormitories. To date, migrant workers accounted for 95 percent of the almost 60,000 infected, while outside the dormitories infection was relatively well-contained and overall extremely low fatalities.

This article reviews how Singapore has responded to the COVID-19 pandemic, from late-January to early May, 2020, through the three-phase approach to “learning”: in-between learning, trial-and-error learning, and contingency learning.

Objectives: For a large part of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, Singapore had managed to keep local cases in the single digits daily, with decisive measures. Yet, we saw this critical time point when the imported cases surged through our borders. The gaps which we can and have efficiently closed, using a public health approach and global border containment strategies, are aptly illustrated through this case.

INTRODUCTION: With the unprecedented challenges imposed on the modern healthcare system due to the COVID-19 pandemic, innovative solutions needed to be swiftly implemented to maintain clinical oversight on patient care. Telemedicine was introduced in Singapore in community-based haemodialysis (HD) centres to comply with the Ministry of Health's directives on movement restriction of healthcare workers and related measures to minimise the spread of SARS-CoV-2 in healthcare facilities.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a major impact in healthcare systems across the world, with many hospitals having to come up with protocols and measures to contain the spread of the virus. This affects various specialties' clinical practices in many ways. Since early 2020 in Singapore, the Department of Otorhinolaryngology at Tan Tock Seng Hospital had to rapidly adapt to this pandemic as we provided services to the main healthcare facility combating the virus in our country. We had to design new workflows and also remain flexible in view of the ever-changing situation.

This article describes the rapid mitigation strategies in addressing the rising number of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases in Singapore. Learning from the severe acute respiratory syndrome experience in 2003, early preparation started in January 2020 when Wuhan was declared as the epicentre of the epidemic. The government had constructed a three-pronged approach which includes travel, healthcare and community measures to curb the spread of COVID-19. © 2020 The Royal Society for Public Health

Background: Between January 24, 2020 and February 15, 2020, an outbreak of COVID-19 occurred among 335 passengers on a flight from Singapore to Hangzhou in China. This study aimed to investigate the source of the outbreak and assess the risk of transmission of COVID-19 during the flight. Method: Using a standardized questionnaire, we collected information on the travelers’ demographic characteristics and illness before, during, and after the flight. We also collected data on factors potentially associated with COVID-19 transmission during the flight.

[No abstract available]

Objectives Daily numbers of COVID-19 in Singapore from March to May 2020, the cause of a surge in cases in April and the national response were examined, and regulations on migrant worker accommodation studied. Methods Information was gathered from daily reports provided by the Ministry of Health, Singapore Statues online and a Ministerial statement given at a Parliament sitting on 4 May 2020. Results A marked escalation in the daily number of new COVID-19 cases was seen in early April 2020.