SINGAPORE – Keeping yourself and your surroundings clean is no longer a matter of preference or being gracious, but the first line of defence against Covid-19, a panel of experts told The Straits Times on Monday (March 23).

In a discussion highlighting the importance of hygiene in this critical period, SGClean task force leader Masagos Zulkifli stressed that other measures such as border controls and quarantine would not be as effective in combating the outbreak if personal hygiene was neglected.

He noted that in the past two decades, the world has already seen four disease outbreaks – Sars, Mers, H1N1 and now Covid-19.

About the current Covid-19 pandemic, he said: “This time round, it’s both contagious and dangerous. Therefore, we do need to think deeply for ourselves and also for society – what we want and how we are going to ensure that what we do will build these defences for the future.

“Public and personal hygiene is Singapore’s first defence, not just against Covid-19 today but against other breakouts that we cannot foresee in the future,” he added.

Professor Wang Linfa, an infectious diseases expert at Duke-NUS Medical School, explained the science behind frequent hand-washing that makes it an effective tool in battling the virus.

The virus has a lipid membrane on the outer layer that keeps it intact, said Prof Wang, and many of the cleaning agents – such as soaps and hand sanitisers- can dissolve this lipid membrane.

He said: “That’s why I think it’s very important we wash our hands either with soap or a sanitiser or 70% ethanol…

“All of these (cleaning agents) will not only clean the environment in the sort of general sense. More specifically for this Covid-19 you can actually disrupt the virus and prevent the transmission.”

Panellist Edward D’Silva, chairman of the Public Hygiene Council, spoke about how technology, such as the mechanisation of cleaning processes, can help to plug a manpower gap in the pool of cleaners here, such as the recent one caused by the lockdown imposed by Malaysia earlier this month. 

Mr Masagos pointed out that because of these new circumstances, there was also a need to establish new social norms in places such as hawker centres and places of worship – with some practices possibly here for good.

Besides personal hygiene and the need to adjust norms, panellist Tai Ji Choong, the director of the Department of Public Cleanliness at the National Environment Agency (NEA) also shared that his agency has been working to raise cleaning standards across the island.

This includes examining how cleaning companies can boost cleaning efforts not just in places where a case has been detected, but also in areas with high human traffic.

Mr Masagos also noted that the risk of exposure can be assessed on three factors: duration, intensity and density. In general, the risk of exposure goes up the longer a person is exposed to the virus, the closer the interactions with an infected case and the larger the number of people in a given setting.

In the discussion, Mr Masagos also said that while Singaporeans are worried about Covid-19, they must not lose sight of the fight against an equally dangerous disease: dengue fever.

“For us in Singapore, dengue is here to stay. The Covid-19 hopefully is here but will go away. We must therefore not lose our sight on something which is also as dangerous,” he said.

Based on earlier reports, there have been more than 4,000 cases of dengue infections in Singapore since the start of this year, about double that of the same period last year.

“Yes, we start washing our hands, it’s fantastic; we don’t leave tissues on the table. But please continue to do the things that we have always been doing year after year to bring down (dengue fever) and to keep suppressing the breeding of mosquitoes, because that’s the only and best defence against dengue transmission,” Mr Masagos added.

The panel also spoke about the rate of transmission and its role in “flattening” the epidemic curve, or containing the outbreak.

How the curve will behave depends on how efficient each country’s government and each individual of the society can work together and bring down the rate of transmission, said Prof Wang.

The panellists also talked about the best and worst hygiene habits of Singaporeans. Mr Masagos said that while most Singaporeans do not litter, they tend not to have good habits such as returning food trays and keeping the table clean for the next user.

“Generally speaking, we have a certain good standard in Singapore, but we really need to think about how to make that standard even higher, and then maintain that standard.

“We are a First World country. But let’s be honest (about) whether we are already a First World people where hygiene and cleanliness are concerned.”

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