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Among those infected with the virus, older adults with pre-existing heart conditions or hypertension face a sharply higher risk. In Singapore, nearly one in two confirmed coronavirus patients is aged 50 and above. Out of 178 patients as of 11 March, 41 of them are in their 50s, 30 are in their 60s and 10 are aged 70 and above. “The elderly, as well as those with chronic medical conditions such as heart and lung disease, have generally been more vulnerable to infections, including other more common bacterial infections and

The School’s Public Health Translational Team (PHTT) collates the evidence base, reviews literature relevant to the outbreak, and produces the weekly COVID-19 Science Report. In addition to maintaining a knowledge base to support policymaking, the School also supports the Ministry of Health and other agencies in other ways, such as modelling the epidemiology of the virus.

“COVID-19 seems to have the best, or the worst, of both worlds. Because it spreads very efficiently, it doesn’t kill as many people; but the percentage it kills is far higher than the common flu,” said Associate Professor Hsu Li Yang, Programme Leader (Infectious Diseases). He was comparing COVID-19 to influenza for Mothership’s ‘Experts Explain’ series. Assoc Prof Hsu clarified that there are two types of coronaviruses, human coronaviruses, which cause the common flu, and animal coronaviruses, which “rarely jump over to (infect) humans”. On COVID-19 being the ‘new normal’,

Dean, Professor Teo Yik Ying was invited by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) to give a seminar about Singapore’s approach to COVID-19. He shared the lessons that our country had learnt from the SARS outbreak in 2003, and presented the multi-prong measures put in place to deal with the current COVID-19 outbreak. The seminar was held on Monday, 9 March 2020 and live-streamed on LSHTM’s website. The session was hosted by the UK Public Health Rapid Support Team (UK-PHRST), a partnership between LSHTM and Public Health

On Monday, 9 March 2020, The Straits Times (ST) held a special edition of its Big Story panel discussion to focus on the COVID-19 outbreak and what lies ahead for Singapore. Moderated by ST senior health correspondent Ms Salma Khalik, the panel comprised four experts: Associate Professor Kenneth Mak, Director of Medical Services at the Ministry of Health, Singapore (MOH) Professor Leo Yee Sin, Executive Director of the National Centre for Infectious Diseases, and Adjunct Professor at SSHSPH Professor Tikki Pangestu, visiting professor at NUS Lee Kuan Yew School of

The World Health Organization wrote in a report: “China’s bold approach to contain the rapid spread of this new respiratory pathogen has changed the course of a rapidly escalating and deadly epidemic. These are the only measures that are currently proven to interrupt or minimise transmission chains in humans.” But WHO also stressed that there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Not all countries will be able to implement the same kind of lockdowns that China did to limit the spread of the virus. The approach would need to be tailored to

The coronavirus continues to spread in countries beyond China, including Britain, Italy, Iran, South Korea and the United States. Despite raising the risk assessment to ‘very high at a global level’, the World Health Organization has expressed that containment of COVID-19 is still feasible and it does not yet constitute a pandemic. “I think they’re a little hesitant because the word pandemic sounds a little bit alarming, and so they don’t want to unnecessarily cause undue panic,” said Assistant Professor Clarence Tam. “But it is important for people to realise