BIRTH OF THE FIRST TASK FORCE

It was the second day of the Chinese New Year and BG Lee Yi-Jin, Commander 6th Singapore Division (6 Div), was getting ready to bring his kids out. But CDF LG Melvyn Ong had other plans for him. Although there had been early warning orders, there was no indication up to that point that 6 Div would be set up as a task force. BG Lee made his way to MOH for the tasking brief. He could not have imagined then what his Health Surveillance Task Force (HSTF) would have to deal with in the months ahead.

The very first line of operations by the HSTF was to assist MOH in call centre operations. They were looking out for people who were at higher risk of infection because they had interacted with visitors from Hubei, China. A battalion of soldiers was activated to set up and operate call centres in Mandai Hill Camp, armed with call scripts instead of their Singapore Assault Rifle - 21st Century (SAR 21) rifles.

Two weeks later, with the growing number of imported COVID-19 cases, the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore came knocking on HSTF's door, seeking assistance for temperature surveillance at the airport. Although the scope was far different from the original tasking of call centre operations, HSTF gamely took on this additional task as it was a national crisis that required all hands on deck.

This was soon followed by the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority asking for help to conduct checks by phone on people who had been issued quarantine orders. The saying that “the reward for good work is often more work” rang true as HSTF quietly established itself as a reliable partner. The operational processes which the HSTF took over from the agencies they assisted were manpower intensive and difficult to scale up. With the pace of operations picking up, the HSTF braced itself to be ready to do more before long.