Thangayah Jeevan Raaj, Kiat Kenneth Tan Boon, Han Lim Swee
Singapore General Hospital Department of Emergency Medicine Singapore.
J Acute Med. 2021 Mar 1;11(1):1-11. doi: 10.6705/j.jacme.202103_11(1).0001.
COVID-19 has changed our lives as we knew it. The world is not naive to infectious disease outbreaks, having experienced pandemics such as the H1N1 outbreak in 2009 with up to 400,000 deaths, and the "Spanish flu" in 1919 with up to 50 million deaths worldwide respectively (https://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/communicable-diseases/influenza/pandemic-influenza/past-pandemics). However, this outbreak caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 has taken the world by storm since it was first reported in end 2019. With the numbers of confirmed cases of COVID-19 and death toll rising every day, it raises the question of when will we be fully equipped to handle a pandemic of such a mammoth scale. A multi-pronged approach has to be undertaken by not only healthcare organisations and pharmaceuticals, but also government agencies and legislation in order to overcome the repercussions and mitigate the effects of an infectious disease outbreak. In this article, we share our experience in Singapore and Singapore General Hospital against COVID-19 and our ongoing efforts to keep the virus at bay.
新冠疫情改变了我们所熟知的生活。世界对传染病爆发并不陌生，曾经历过2009年甲型H1N1流感爆发，造成多达40万人死亡，以及1919年的“西班牙流感”，全球分别有多达5000万人死亡（https://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/communicable-diseases/influenza/pandemic-influenza/past-pandemics）。然而，自2019年底首次报告以来，这种由严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒2引发的疫情席卷全球。随着新冠确诊病例数和死亡人数每日攀升，这引发了一个问题：我们何时才能完全有能力应对如此大规模的疫情。不仅医疗组织和制药企业，政府机构和立法部门也必须采取多管齐下的方法，以克服传染病爆发的影响并减轻其后果。在本文中，我们分享在新加坡及新加坡总医院抗击新冠疫情的经验，以及我们为控制病毒所做的持续努力。
