It was January 2020, and the “novel coronavirus” had arrived in Singapore. Before long, the threat had a name — the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by the SARS-COV- 2 virus. But the experts still had little understanding of this new threat. There was hope that the outbreak would be short-lived, like the previous serious coronavirus outbreak SARS had been in 2003. That turned out to be a false hope. It soon became clear that COVID-19 was spreading fast across just about every country and posing a very grave public health threat across the world. It was a global pandemic.

In Singapore, as the nature and magnitude of the threat became clearer, Singaporeans had to adopt new habits to safeguard their health. Government organisations as well as those in the private and people sectors had to develop new processes and procedures to ensure that they could continue to function while keeping their people safe.