COVID 19 Press Conference Opening Remarks by Min Gan Kim Yong

This opening remark was first published by the Ministry of Health, Singapore on December 14, 2020.

Taking stock of our COVID-19 response

Singapore saw our first imported case on 23 January, and our first cases of local transmission on 4 February.

We stood up our contact tracing teams, expanded our testing capacity, introduced safe distancing measures, and tightened border controls. Despite our best efforts, we saw several clusters of infection, including among migrant workers in the dormitories, and the number of cases rose. At the peak, we saw more than 1,400 new cases a day and that was in April.

We had to mobilise many government agencies including the Singapore Armed Forces and the Home Team, as well as the private sector, and volunteers through the SG Healthcare Corps, to respond quickly to the evolving situation.

Link to full opening remarks: https://www.moh.gov.sg/news-highlights/details/opening-remarks-by-minister-gan-kim-yong-co-chair-of-the-multi-ministry-taskforce-on-covid-19-at-the-covid-19-press-conference-on-14-december-2020