ANSWERING THE CALL

HSTF was presented with its biggest challenge yet when it was tasked to support MOH in contact tracing in March 2020. This was more extensive and more complicated than the previous tasks, especially after cases in the migrant worker dormitories rose dramatically. The national healthcare system came under immense pressure and MOH's capacity was maxed out.

HSTF realised that good contact tracing could make a significant impact on curbing the spread of the virus, and it was vital for the task force to support MOH well in this mission. The task force quickly visited the MOH centres and arranged on-the-job training for its members to learn the protocols and procedures. The timeline for HSTF to phase in its operations was progressively shortened as the situation worsened. With great urgency to ramp up the capability to provide this critical support, HSTF poured all its focus and energy to the task and managed to scale up its national contact tracing capacity tenfold within two weeks.

EARLY SETBACKS

HSTF's Ops Centre was in Mandai Hill Camp. Having such an Ops Centre meant that there could be more effective command and control over all the call centres as cases linked to the same cluster could be assigned to the same contact tracing centre. This was more efficient and saved considerable time. However, this concentrated arrangement also made the task force more vulnerable to the highly contagious virus.

LTC Danny Poh, who was Head Operations Branch, 6 Div, recalled the early setbacks that the team encountered shortly after the task force reorganised itself for the massive contact tracing operation. He was the SAF representative at one of the early multi-agency meetings at MOH to discuss the contact tracing processes. A few days after that meeting, he received a very unwelcome call from MOH informing him that someone who was at the meeting had tested positive for COVID-19.