SINGAPORE — Singapore's Covid-19 vaccination plan was an important exit strategy that the country got right, whereas the spread of the infectious disease in workers' dormitories was one of the "biggest challenges" it had to overcome, Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong said.

Mr Wong, who is also Finance Minister and former co-chair of the ministerial task force for Covid-19 that was stood down last month, said: “(The dormitory situation) could have possibly been a major disaster for us.

"But fortunately, with the help of the SAF (Singapore Armed Forces) and everyone working very hard, we were able to manage the situation and keep our dorm workers safe.”

On the other hand, it was what Singapore pulled off with its vaccination strategy that turned out to be what got the nation through the pandemic. This included procuring the vaccines, communicating their benefits and delivering the jabs to the people.

He was speaking to reporters on Tuesday (March 7) after a briefing on an after-action review analysing Singapore's pandemic response. 

The 92-page report, titled White Paper on Singapore's Response to Covid-19: Lessons for the Next Pandemic, was released to the public on Wednesday.

Delving into what went right and wrong in the country's three-year fight against Covid-19, the report will be debated in Parliament at its next sitting on March 20. The paper drew on the insights from an internal review by former head of civil service Peter Ho and the findings from other reviews conducted by government agencies.

Mr Wong stressed that the after-action review is not meant to pass judgement on how Covid-19 was handled, in response to TODAY's question.

“If we all knew, with the benefit of hindsight, everything we know now from day one of the pandemic, obviously, many things would have been different,” Mr Wong said, adding that this could mean fewer deaths, less disruption and less spending.

“But that's like asking for the impossible because no one would have been able to have that perfect information at the very start of the pandemic, nor would we have the solutions at hand,” he continued, saying that vaccines were not available early on, for instance.

Among other things, the report named several shortfalls in Singapore’s response, such as the authorities’ handling of the viral spread in migrant workers’ dormitories in April 2020, as well as the wrong assumptions made in the early stage of the outbreak about the risk of disease spread when there were no symptoms or before developing symptoms.

One example was an earlier mask-wearing policy, Mr Wong said, noting that the report concluded that the Government could have been “less definitive” in its position on mask-wearing at the time.

Before mid-April 2020, the Government advised people to not wear a mask unless they were unwell, at a time when clinical evidence on how the new coronavirus spread was not fully understood.

The Government reversed this policy later, and it was only in June 2020 that the World Health Organization officially issued its advice on mask-wearing for health workers and the general public.

The Government could have encouraged the population to devise their own face masks while it set up manufacturing lines to increase production of surgical masks and deal with supply shortages, the report noted.

“If all that had been clear from the outset, then I think we would have gone on a bigger campaign to encourage more rounds of efforts for such (self-made) face masks to be deployed,” Mr Wong said.

The purpose of the review was to draw lessons from Singapore’s experience with Covid-19, so that the country can be better prepared when the next pandemic comes, “because we know it will definitely strike Singapore in a matter of time”, he added.

This includes the need for new capabilities to strengthen the public health system, especially in the field of infectious diseases, as well as in forward planning, communications, science and technology.

“These are all lessons that we will think hard about and translate that into actual actions and policies,” he said.

As an example, he pointed to the Homefront Crisis Executive Group, which comprised government officials who supported the Covid-19 multi-ministerial task force he headed. These officers were primarily focused on tackling the present situation, while anticipating future trends all at the same time.

"But we think, as part of our structure, as part of our system, having some dedicated officers focus just on anticipating what future scenarios might be... so that we can have better forward planning capability, I think that's something that we have learned from this crisis," Mr Wong said.

He also said that the after-action review did not dive into the Government's expenditure on pandemic-related measures and that there is an ongoing audit process by the Auditor-General's Office.

Mr Wong added: "Of course, from the Finance Ministry's perspective, we will have an interest in making sure that every dollar of public spending is well-used."

Asked about Singapore’s confidence in handling the next pandemic, he replied that just as the Covid-19 pandemic had been different from the 2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) outbreak, the next pandemic will be different and will require a different response.

“So while the lessons will help give us a better sense of preparedness, we must never fight the last war,” he said.

“We must not allow the lessons to become hard-coded into a certain doctrine that might lead us down the wrong path, especially if the next virus turns out to be very different in character and nature from what we have experienced so far.”

Responding to another question about what grade he would give Singapore's performance in the pandemic fight, Mr Wong said that the answer should come from other people and not him.

"I can't possibly give a grade because I was being examined. It's for people to examine me and give me a grade."