The National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID) is the result of many
years in the planning, and it finally officially opened its doors in
September 2019, just months before the entire world was tested by the
COVID-19 pandemic. This book is the work of many people who represent an
even larger pool of people from NCID, Singapore and the rest of the
world in trying to understand and contain the SARS- CoV-2 virus. There
are chapters on science, the public health response both locally and
globally, as well as personal reflections from NCID and Tan Tock Seng
Hospital staff and staff from other public healthcare institutions who
were deployed to NCID which bring home the human impact of the pandemic.
We are very grateful to all the authors for taking the time to put
together their thoughtful chapters as well as the senior academics and
public health leaders who have provided us with generous comments on the
manuscript. We hope that the readers of the book will gain a better
insight into the response to the virus from so many different
perspectives. Although the pandemic has evolved far beyond the pages of
this book globally, the lessons learned from the early days are still
relevant. We hope that the chapters will be helpful as we review our
experience of this pandemic and face the next emerging infectious
disease in the years to come.
This book provides a comprehensive look at many different aspects of
response in Singapore to the pandemic in the crucial first several
months, including clinical, laboratory, epidemiology, research,
community engagement and the unprecedented challenge of outbreak
involving migrant workers in dormitory settings. On a personal note, it
has first-hand accounts of staff at the NCID who were at the forefront
of battling COVID-19 in Singapore. It also gives a global perspective of
the pandemic, together with insights into the unique Singapore
experience of managing the pandemic. The Singapore response to the
pandemic has been something which the global community has been very
interested in and this book is the first to comprehensively describe
that response from a number of different angles which will be useful to
scientists, clinicians, public health professionals and policy makers.
