By Chua Lee Hoong
Hope for the best,
prepare for the worst,
Life is a play,
we're unrehearsed.
THAT quotation has been echoing in my mind since Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong took it upon himself to meet the media last Sunday.
His message to Singaporeans on how to deal with the severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) outbreak was simple: Be responsible. Be cautious. But don't overreact.
He also disclosed the setting up of a ministerial committee - not just another ministerial committee, but one that will call upon the Executive Group of senior civil servants whose mandate it is to deal with crises.
From what I know about the work of what in civil service circles is called the EG, its being activated is a sure sign that the Government is treating the Sars outbreak seriously, and is planning ahead for if the situation deteriorates.
Indeed, as PM Goh said, the ministerial committee headed by Home Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng will be asking a lot of 'what if' questions: What if a housing block has several Sars patients? What if foreign workers are affected? What should be done to quarantine them?
The empirical evidence so far is that Sars infection occurs mainly in hospitals and at home through close contact.
But better to be safe than sorry, and so the ever-forward-looking Singapore Government is planning for what it and all the rest of us must hope isn't going to happen.
Beyond that, however, can individual Singaporeans do anything? The answer must be 'yes', because although we've long been accustomed to the Government planning sundry aspects of life for us, dealing with the microbe my colleague Nirmala calls a 'quick-change artist' able to 're-emerge to shock and awe' is one aspect of life that no government regulation can cover.
Should Singaporeans go to the cinema? Should we go to the swimming pool? How about discotheques? Public libraries? Food courts? Even beaches and public parks?
The questions are many, and at the Istana on Sunday, journalists plied the PM with them because, as one said, 'there is a sizeable portion of the population which wants clear directives'.
But there can be no clear directives on matters like this, beyond 'use your common sense, and then take your chances'. Or, as PM Goh said: Be socially responsible. Be cautious. But don't overreact.
Singapore is a small place. Not as densely populated as Hongkong, but small and crowded enough for disease to spread quickly.
By the same token, quarantine measures are hard to enforce because most Singaporeans live in small apartments. To be confined in them must be extremely claustrophobic.
On the flip side, however, Singapore has going for it two important things.
One is a generally clean and hygienic public environment. Rodents, cockroaches and other health hazards are tightly controlled.
The other is a population that is generally educated enough to be able to understand and appreciate the severity of the problem and to do its part.
With PM Goh's high-profile intervention, I have no doubt people are sitting up and doing the necessary to protect themselves and their families.
Face masks? They're appearing everywhere. Scrub offices? The cleaning industry is booming. Check your own health and take your temperature regularly? Thermometers are selling out fast.
But the best approach, as PM Goh said, is still social responsibility: If you are sick, do the necessary to make sure you don't become a menace to the rest of society.
He cited the example of the flu-stricken Japanese man who wore a mask so that he wouldn't infect others. Here in Singapore, most of us haven't been that socially responsible. Can we, will we, do as that Japanese man?
Then there is the example of the Vietnam-France Hospital in Hanoi, location of one of the earliest Sars cases.
I had assumed that when doctors there quarantined off the entire hospital, they did so under the directive of the state. But I have since been told that doctors took the decision themselves: 'When they realised the infectiousness of the viral beast, they selflessly decided to hermetically quarantine themselves so that the virus would 'burn out' and be killed with them.'
The people who took this courageous decision included, particularly, the foreign doctors of the World Health Organisation who had been members of Medecins Sans Frontieres, the non-governmental organisation that works for free across borders to save the sick.
Hats off to those doctors. Would we, as Singaporeans, have been able to do that?
The Government has a number of worst-case scenarios it is planning for. For individuals, the worst-case scenario we should plan for is: What if there was no government?
Even as we expect the Government to do this and that, there's a lot that we can do, and teach our children to do.
