By Chua Lee Hoong
Hope for the best,
prepare for the worst,
Life is a play,
we're unrehearsed.
THAT quotation has been echoing in my mind since Prime Minister Goh
Chok Tong took it upon himself to meet the media last Sunday.
His message to Singaporeans on how to deal with the severe acute
respiratory syndrome (Sars) outbreak was simple: Be responsible. Be
cautious. But don't overreact.
He also disclosed the setting up of a ministerial committee - not
just another ministerial committee, but one that will call upon the
Executive Group of senior civil servants whose mandate it is to
deal with crises.
From what I know about the work of what in civil service circles is
called the EG, its being activated is a sure sign that the
Government is treating the Sars outbreak seriously, and is planning
ahead for if the situation deteriorates.
Indeed, as PM Goh said, the ministerial committee headed by Home
Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng will be asking a lot of 'what if'
questions: What if a housing block has several Sars patients? What
if foreign workers are affected? What should be done to quarantine
them?
The empirical evidence so far is that Sars infection occurs mainly
in hospitals and at home through close contact.
But better to be safe than sorry, and so the ever-forward-looking
Singapore Government is planning for what it and all the rest of us
must hope isn't going to happen.
Beyond that, however, can individual Singaporeans do anything? The
answer must be 'yes', because although we've long been accustomed
to the Government planning sundry aspects of life for us, dealing
with the microbe my colleague Nirmala calls a 'quick-change artist'
able to 're-emerge to shock and awe' is one aspect of life that no
government regulation can cover.
Should Singaporeans go to the cinema? Should we go to the swimming
pool? How about discotheques? Public libraries? Food courts? Even
beaches and public parks?
The questions are many, and at the Istana on Sunday, journalists
plied the PM with them because, as one said, 'there is a sizeable
portion of the population which wants clear directives'.
But there can be no clear directives on matters like this, beyond
'use your common sense, and then take your chances'. Or, as PM Goh
said: Be socially responsible. Be cautious. But don't
overreact.
Singapore is a small place. Not as densely populated as Hongkong,
but small and crowded enough for disease to spread quickly.
By the same token, quarantine measures are hard to enforce because
most Singaporeans live in small apartments. To be confined in them
must be extremely claustrophobic.
On the flip side, however, Singapore has going for it two important
things.
One is a generally clean and hygienic public environment. Rodents,
cockroaches and other health hazards are tightly controlled.
The other is a population that is generally educated enough to be
able to understand and appreciate the severity of the problem and
to do its part.
With PM Goh's high-profile intervention, I have no doubt people are
sitting up and doing the necessary to protect themselves and their
families.
Face masks? They're appearing everywhere. Scrub offices? The
cleaning industry is booming. Check your own health and take your
temperature regularly? Thermometers are selling out fast.
But the best approach, as PM Goh said, is still social
responsibility: If you are sick, do the necessary to make sure you
don't become a menace to the rest of society.
He cited the example of the flu-stricken Japanese man who wore a
mask so that he wouldn't infect others. Here in Singapore, most of
us haven't been that socially responsible. Can we, will we, do as
that Japanese man?
Then there is the example of the Vietnam-France Hospital in Hanoi,
location of one of the earliest Sars cases.
I had assumed that when doctors there quarantined off the entire
hospital, they did so under the directive of the state. But I have
since been told that doctors took the decision themselves: 'When
they realised the infectiousness of the viral beast, they
selflessly decided to hermetically quarantine themselves so that
the virus would 'burn out' and be killed with them.'
The people who took this courageous decision included,
particularly, the foreign doctors of the World Health Organisation
who had been members of Medecins Sans Frontieres, the
non-governmental organisation that works for free across borders to
save the sick.
Hats off to those doctors. Would we, as Singaporeans, have been
able to do that?
The Government has a number of worst-case scenarios it is planning
for. For individuals, the worst-case scenario we should plan for
is: What if there was no government?
Even as we expect the Government to do this and that, there's a lot
that we can do, and teach our children to do.
