'Hope we stay kind to each other': S'poreans recount Covid-19’s worst and people’s strength, kindness as country moves to Dorscon green

SINGAPORE — A doctor in a hospital does not want to ever go through the experience again and a taxi driver is still very afraid now to spend more money than is needed after going through hard times during the peak of the Covid-19 crisis.

They, a travel agent and a nurse talked to TODAY about how their lives were upended when the global health crisis struck in early 2020 and if life is getting back to normal for them as Singapore marks a milestone to live with Covid-19 for good, just as it does with endemic diseases such as influenza.

Last week, the Government’s task force for Covid-19 announced that the country’s Disease Outbreak Response System Condition (Dorscon) is lowered from yellow to green and that the task force is standing down.

It signals the official end of Singapore's three-year battle with Covid-19.

Dorscon at green indicates that the disease is mild, or severe but is not easily spread, and causes little disruption to daily life.

The Government also lifted the mask-wearing regulation for people taking public transport starting from Monday (Feb 13). Masks must be worn only in patient-facing healthcare settings. 

‘WE CAN DO THIS, WE MUST DO THIS’  

During the thick of the pandemic, Ms Mashithah Mansor often felt like she was running 10 marathons daily. 

The 45-year-old nurse clinician from Changi General Hospital tends to patients who need emergency medical attention and intensive acute care at its medical intensive care unit.

“I recall attending to long emergencies, which required me to be in full personal protective equipment gear. After a few hours, when I get to finally ‘de-gown’, I couldn’t even feel my face and was extremely thirsty from the heat.

“But it was just a quick stand-down before we attended to another emergency call. By the end of the shift, it felt like I ran a marathon 10 times over.”

Ms Mashithah said that the hospital team began preparing for a pandemic as soon as news came in 2020 of the coronavirus being detected.

“After the initial shock (of hearing the news of the virus), those feelings were soon replaced with a sense of duty. It felt like we were gearing up to ‘fight a battle’, but instead of war machinery, we wore our masks, protective suits and a powered air-purifying respirator to face an unseen ‘enemy’.

“I remember thinking to myself, ‘We can do this, we must do this and we have to do this. And we will’,” she said. 

Now with Singapore back to green for Dorscon, Ms Mashithah said that it feels surreal, like seeing light at “the end of the tunnel”.

During the height of the outbreak, like most healthcare workers, Ms Mashithah was worried that her long exposure in a healthcare facility would risk her contracting the Sars-CoV-2 coronavirus causing Covid-19, and infecting her family members, particularly her two young children. 

To cope with this anxiety and channel her thoughts elsewhere, she picked up sketching and acrylic painting as a way to capture her experiences through drawings, and shared them with healthcare colleagues who could relate to the drawings.

She also received support and encouragement from her family members, especially her mother, whom she describes as her pillar of strength. 

“My mother took over the care of my children. She had to learn how to move with technology and guide my children through their learning. She supported me to the fullest, and would try not to contact me at work unless necessary, for she knew that we were already handling so much at work.”

Ms Mashithah’s mother and aunt also supported her colleagues who could not return to their home countries and see their families, by preparing food for them and even housing one of her junior nurse colleagues who was stranded in Singapore due to border closures.

Now, even though the mask restrictions have been lifted except in certain healthcare settings, Ms Mashithah said that she still continues to wear them when she goes out, especially in indoor spaces, to reduce her chances of contracting Covid-19.

‘PSYCHOLOGICAL SUPPORT WAS REALLY IMPORTANT’

When Singapore's partial lockdown for Covid-19 began in April 2020, Mr Toh Thiam Wei’s travel company had to stop operations immediately for an unknown length of time.

This was when people had to stay home and non-essential businesses and activities came to a halt.

The 41-year-old founder and chief tour guide of Indie Singapore Tours, a Singapore-based travel company, said: “It was a very uncertain time. My wife and I calculated our finances to see how long we could last on our savings before I may have to get a new job altogether. 

“It was still a difficult decision to consider because there’s a lot of emotional baggage that we have to work through, since we have built up this business together over the last four to five years.” 

Mr Toh and his wife, who have no children, could not earn income during the lockdown, but they managed to tide through with their savings and the occasional payouts that they received from the Government. 

He added that his wife was his main motivation, helping him to persevere through the lockdown.

“My wife was very supportive of me, but at the same time, she was also practical and critical of our circumstances, whether we had enough to go through the lockdown based on our finances. The psychological support was really important for me at that time,” he recalled.

Soon after the lockdown was over in about two months, Mr Toh’s travel company saw a gradual growth in domestic demand, which reached its peak when the Government launched the SingapoRediscover vouchers in July 2020 to boost spending here on eligible attractions, hotels and tours affected by the pandemic.

Now that the Covid-19 situation here is stable and back to the green stage of Dorscon, Mr Toh is hopeful that demand for his tours will continue to grow and attract visitors, particularly from overseas.

AWAY FROM BABY AT HOME

Dr Gabriel Yee, 35, remembered that he could not spend much time with his newborn child at the peak of the Covid-19 outbreak.

During the first month of the semi-lockdown in April 2020, he moved out of his home to isolate himself from his family to protect them, in case he got infected by the coronavirus. At the time, it was his wife, who had just given birth to their second child then, and their two-year-old daughter in the household.

The nature of the virus was still unclear then and he was not sure whether he could contract it from public areas such as when taking public transport.

Dr Yee, who has been working at Bright Vision Community Hospital, which is part of the Singhealth Community Hospitals grouping, moved to an accommodation closer to the hospital.

Bright Vision Community Hospital, located in Yio Chu Kang, looks after patients recently released from hospitals who need post-acute continuing care, rehabilitative care and palliative care.

However, it had to temporarily transform into a Covid-19 hospital isolation facility, helping to care for Covid-19 patients during the pandemic.

Dr Yee also wanted to be nearer to the hospital in case he was called for work, since he had volunteered to do night shifts for two weeks in a row in the first month of the lockdown.

“I told my family I would probably not get home for the first month because I wouldn’t know where I may get the disease, like in public transport areas.

“I was lucky to have a helper (domestic worker) and my mother-in-law to be there for my wife.”

On top of working longer hours and seeing patients from morning to night, Dr Yee said that he also had back-to-back meetings about the Covid-19 developments. 

This, along with not being able to travel, were some of the Covid-19 experiences that he would not wish to go through again, he added.

He also said that it was difficult to see some of his colleagues missing crucial years of their family members’ lives because they could not return to their home countries such as Myanmar and the Philippines.

Dr Yee is glad that the Dorscon is now at the green level and also grateful to patients who entrusted their lives to the hospital’s staff members.

“I hope we continue to be kind to each other and to healthcare workers. We should not make unreasonable demands on healthcare workers, like demanding that nurses make and serve Milo,” he said of the hot chocolate-milk drink that is commonly served in hospital wards.

HUSBAND HAD HEART ATTACK

Ms Zainon Mohamed, a 54-year-old taxi driver, said that her family’s household income suffered during the partial lockdown period because she and her husband, a private-hire car driver, had “no passengers”.

The circumstances worsened when her husband contracted Covid-19 and had a heart attack during that same period, forcing him to be out of work for 70 days.

She found work doing Covid-19 nasal swab tests and used her taxi to do food deliveries, which earned her about S$50 a day.

As the sole breadwinner that period, Ms Zainon had to support her young daughter and elderly mother who has been partially bedridden due to a stroke.

“The pandemic, especially the lockdown period, was really difficult for me because I had to support my family. We had to scrimp and save every cent we had,” she said.

“Though I am glad that we are back to normalcy, my family is still scared to spend on non-essential things now since our income is just recovering and we are still in the midst of inflation and there is the Goods and Services Tax increase.”

Despite the hardships, she was heartened by people she met while doing food deliveries.

“I was doing door-to-door food delivery during the Ramadan fasting month. Some of the customers I delivered food to, nearing the time for breaking the fast, had water on standby with snacks like chocolate bars or dates at their doors. They even added little notes wishing me a happy break-fast,” she recounted. 

Ms Zainon has returned to full-time work as a taxi driver and is hoping now that she gets more passengers and can earn as much as she did before Covid-19.

“I still haven’t recovered my daily taxi-driver earnings to pre-Covid levels. I need to work about eight hours now to earn what I did when I worked six hours before the pandemic.”

Ms Zainon also said that she is still going to wear a mask when driving because she has asthma and wants to give herself added protection.