Some experts believe that the Covid-19 crisis has had such a devastating effect in Europe because of a lack of preparation - essentially when Covid-19 arrived, Europe was not ready and did not act quickly enough. In Singapore however, as soon as news of the crisis in Wuhan came out, they prepared straight away. Victor, a Singapore citizen, spoke about the importance of such a quick reaction in stemming the flow.
<< They actually put in a place a lot of measures to curb right from the onset. So if you look at a lot of the cases around the world, particularly in Italy and in France I think that what really got them was the fact that they weren't prepared for it, and then it snowballed and the whole healthcare system practically broke down because of that. I think we were quite lucky here in the sense that the government anticipated that this would happen, so they put in a place a lot more restrictions and measures right from the beginning. For us, when it first happened in Wuhan in China, in Singapore we went into a DORSCON yellow stage, which is the second time it's ever been activated - the first time was during SARS 17 years ago. So when that happened, everyone really started to make sure they maintained their hygiene level, they put on face-masks when they went out, using hand sanitiser. All of these little things that we can do, they go a long way in terms of trying to curb the spread. >>
It is admittedly difficult to know whether stronger preparations would have had a significant effect in Europe. Nevertheless in the last week Singapore has still seen a sharp increase in cases.