THIS IS WHAT WE DO

LTC Enriquez hurried back to camp to meet with his Battalion core group. His first priority was to determine the extent of infection in the battalion, and stem any panic or speculation among the troopers. Thankfully, an earlier Formation Executive Group meeting chaired by Commander, 3 Div BG Frederick Choo had already decided to allocate resources from across the Army to help units with consequence management. LTC Enriquez had registered his requests then, as well as through his direct superior, Commander, 3rd Singapore Infantry Brigade (SIB) COL Wong Shi Ming.

LTC Enriquez's first order of business was to carry out contact tracing. 2 SIR was supported by the SAF's Contact Tracing Centre (CTC). CTC had been set up to support the national contact tracing efforts, and LTC Enriquez was glad that the Army had now allocated dedicated contact tracing capacity to his unit.

However, he also knew that his troopers might be alarmed if they received a call directly from CTC. Some of them had already headed to the NCID on their own accord after hearing that PTE “A” was infected with COVID-19. Pushing out timely and accurate information to his troopers and their families would have to be the next priority.

While he had Army Information Centre (AIC)'s key messages prepared for such situations, LTC Enriquez knew they had to be tailored to sound more engaging and less formal for the situation at hand. So he tasked his OCs and Company Sergeant Majors (CSMs) to synchronise key communications lines and disseminate them across the battalion. As for the soldiers identified as close contacts of PTE “A”, LTC Enriquez instructed CPT Chong and his CSM 3WO Desmond Xie to speak to them immediately, before CTC contacted them. “It's important that your troopers hear from you first,” LTC Enriquez told CPT Chong.

HQ Army Medical Services (HQ AMS) also responded to LTC Enriquez's request for medical support. To give greater assurance, SAF Medical Officers (MOs) were deployed to swab all 29 close contacts in their homes that same day and they were told to stay home until their swab results cleared them. The next day, after the rest of the battalion had booked in, HQ AMS deployed MOs to 2 SIR to do medical screening for the entire battalion. Anyone with flu-like symptoms was immediately swabbed and isolated. Those who reported sick that morning were seen by the MOs at the battalion instead of Kranji Camp Medical Centre, which was the norm, to reduce the risk of further infection.