Front-liners braved risks to bring Covid-19 under control

There were mixed reactions when the virus hit early in the year - some people were wary, others complacent - but an army of front-liners had been gearing up behind the scenes to keep Singapore safe.

When cases began to rise, healthcare workers were ready.

They had been trained to use personal protective wear and ensure good hygiene practices to reduce the chances of infection.

Other essential staff continued to show up at work to keep things running, despite the personal risk it involved.

These front-liners had to make sacrifices on other fronts. Nurse clinician Abdul Wahab, 54, saw his mother just three times this year before she died last month.

When his mum developed heart failure in October, he was stuck between wanting to be by her side and keeping her safe from anything that might be on him.

Mr Wahab and four others - Mr Benson Ng, a swabber for Covid-19 tests; Mr Nigel Quek, commanding officer at Certis' Integrated Quarantine Order Services; Professor Ooi Eng Eong, co-developer of Singapore's sole Sars-CoV-2 vaccine now in human trials; and National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID) executive director, Professor Leo Yee Sin - have been nominated to represent the army of people on the front lines of the Covid-19 battle for The Straits Times' Singaporean of the Year award.

Mr Ng's determination to sign up as a swabber came after his 58-year-old father's brush with Covid-19 in March.

"The experience that my family went through made me very determined to do something to fight the virus," said 32-year-old Mr Ng, who is employed under the Health Promotion Board.

Mr Quek, 34, said it has been gratifying to see hundreds of his officers step up to oversee quarantine orders, especially during the peak of the pandemic, when they had to deal with high numbers in workers' dormitories.

Duke-NUS Medical School's Prof Ooi, 53, who specialises in emerging infectious diseases, has been racing against time to develop a vaccine for the virus.

Prof Leo helms the NCID, which became the nerve centre of the country's battle against its biggest pandemic less than six months after the centre officially opened in September last year.

While the country managed to bring community cases down, the work of front-liners has yet to ease.

"There are still a lot of unknowns about the disease, such as post-Covid-19 syndrome and reports of reinfections," said Prof Leo, 61.

"We don't know whether the virus will evolve and how the evolutions will affect us... We have to continue researching and studying this."