OPENING REMARKS BY MR ONG YE KUNG, MINISTER FOR HEALTH, AT VARSITY VOICES DIALOGUE, 18 JUNE 2022

        Good morning. It is a pleasure to be here with you today.

2.     It has been a while since I addressed a big group of students face-to-face. It is something I really enjoyed doing as Education Minister. I hope I have not become too rusty. 

3.     Today we are talking about youths navigating a post-pandemic world. A pertinent topic. 

4.     At your age, I lived through the Cold War. There were movies made about nuclear holocaust and at some point, I thought this would be our fate and I might not have a future. Then the Berlin Wall came down and that was the start of the end of the Cold War. I was studying overseas then, and with a female friend, made a trip to Berlin and symbolically joined the wall hacking. We are now married with two kids. 

5.     Nuclear war did not happen. Globalisation did; China opened up to the world; the Internet and social media came about; the climate started to warm up; every blockbuster is now a superhero movie; Singapore grew and matured, and here we are. There are still lots of problems in the world, but life is not a disaster, and – depending on your perspective – not too bad at all. 

6.     And then the biggest global crisis – COVID-19 – struck. Every country in the world is affected. I do not have to describe to you the paralysis, despair and deprivation that followed. The pandemic is not over but the dust has settled, and most countries are now living with COVID-19. 

7.     Thanks to our collective efforts and trust in each other, Singapore came out of it with one of the lowest fatality rates in the world. 

8.     What is next? Will the BC or Before COVID world, and the AD or After Disease world, be more of the same or different? 

9.     I argue that it has to be different. We have to make it different, for the better, or we would have wasted the global crisis. I cannot speak for every facet of life, but let me speak briefly about the sectors I was involved in. 

10.     As Education Minister I tried my best not to close schools when fear was at its height. Because I felt that while the affluent can afford home tuition, the masses cannot, and prolonged loss of school time will have long-term detrimental effects on the children. Further, parents need children to go to school so that they can go to work. 

11.     So we kept schools opened, but without fun things like CCAs, sports competition and playground activities. When the Circuit Breaker had to be implemented, we closed school for a month, by switching to home-based learning. We managed to do that because digital learning was already years in the making when COVID-19 struck. It was meant to enhance the classroom experience with digital tools, but we repurposed it for home-based learning. 

12.     Within that month, digital lessons proliferated, children became digitally equipped, parents got involved in education, and teachers gained confidence in delivering lessons online. As we emerged from the Circuit Breaker, we enhanced digital learning in school, as a permanent feature of school experience. We equipped every secondary school student with a digital device. We introduced a fortnightly self-directed learning day, where students learn from home, independently, doing research, reading or project work.

13.     All these were always in MOE’s plans, but to be implemented much later, around 2028. COVID-19 brought it forward by 6 to 7 years. 

14.     Something similar happened at the Ministry of Transport. When I took up post as Minister for Transport, we were deep into the pandemic. I could not insist on keeping our airport opened. Borders were closed, and Changi Airport became a ghost town. But it brought to the fore the strategic importance of our air hub. We found ways to keep the airport humming along, including air travel bubbles and cargo transport. 

15.     With reduced traffic, the air was cleaner and I thought the sky was bluer and sunsets more colourful. A few ministries took the opportunity to come together to launch the Singapore Green Plan. We are a small country and cannot make a huge difference to climate change but at least we can be the urban city with the right climate-friendly policies which other cities can use as a reference. 

16.     On MOT’s part, we set ourselves to convert our car population substantively to run on cleaner energy, by 2040. Few countries have set such ambitious plans but we are in a unique position to do this because of our COE system. 

17.     As people worked from home, and social activities were restricted, peak hour traffic plunged. Even today, after we have removed almost all restrictions, peak hour traffic is not at the same level as before COVID-19. This is a positive development. We should try to find ways to embrace a suitable level of flexi work arrangements, and also spread out traffic during the day, for a more sustainable way of commuting. This pivot would not have been possible without COVID-19.

18.     The Ministry of Health is where we found our world turned upside down. COVID-19 however, has led to some unprecedented changes in care-seeking behavior and how healthcare is delivered. 

19.     People now truly appreciate the importance of hygiene, wearing of masks to prevent illness, and taking vaccinations. With social restrictions, more people picked up exercising. All these are important aspects of preventive care which no amount of peace time public education campaign could bring about. 

20.     Our family doctors – mostly private GPs – became part of the public healthcare response system. They attend to COVID-19 patients, test them, triage them, and decide if they should recover at home or a healthcare facility. Without GPs we would not have been able to cope with the Delta and Omicron waves.

21.     It was also during the pandemic that most Singaporeans – whether youths like you or the aunties and uncles who are not digital natives – saw the role that technology can play in healthcare. Telemedicine became more widely accepted because people can see the doctor in the comfort of their own homes. TraceTogether, SafeEntry and HealthHub apps, which became our constant COVID-19 companions. They became indispensable apps alongside our TikTok, Spotify and YouTube apps. 

22.     These are profound developments, compressed in a short few months, which prompted us to launch the Healthier SG strategy. It will focus on preventive care, to keep our population healthy. We will sustain the momentum of family doctors like GPs being a critical part of the public healthcare system, to enrol all residents above 40 for preventive care programmes. Besides drug prescription, family doctors will prescribe regular health screening, and offer social prescriptions, to urge their patients to eat, sleep and exercise better. 

23.     Between regular visits to our family doctors, we hope everyone will continue to have healthcare apps, complemented by wearables, to nudge us to live more healthily. As it is, 700,000 adult Singapore residents have downloaded the Healthy 365 app under the National Steps Challenge. 

24.     Healthier SG is a pivotal and major transformation of how we deliver healthcare. It is something MOH has always wanted to do, but COVID-19 gave us a golden opportunity to accelerate the implementation. 

25.     Beyond the three Ministries I was assigned to during the pandemic, I believe many more opportunities abound, to do things differently, to accelerate transformation plans. 

26.     These are all work-related. At a personal level, I am trying to live a better post COVID-19 life too. Like many others, I spend a lot more time with my family during the pandemic, as community events were cancelled, and social activities were curtailed. It has helped me value family time more and realised I have not spent enough time with them. 

27.     In my home I have a little study room, where I do my work, physical exercises, sit on my armchair and play my vinyl records. My wife said that because of COVID-19, I have emerged from my man-cave, to spend more time with my loved ones at the dining table, or in the living room, even while I still work on my computer. 

28.     What about you? How has life changed for you? I think it really depends on how you see the situation and what you decide to do about it. 

29.     You missed out a lot on school experiences due to COVID-19. Athletes could not participate in the National School Games; overseas trips and internships got cancelled or cut short; prom nights and graduation trips could not go ahead; and there was no proper commencement ceremony to mark the milestone of your graduation. 

30.     It is a pity. But we have to let go of what is lost and what we cannot control. Instead, given that you could not do what students normally do, what did you do that was abnormal and out of the ordinary? If you have done so, very good for you. If you have not done so, it is not too late to start. Do something that can make life different and better, just as we are trying to make education, transport and healthcare different.

31.     Let the post COVID-19 world bring out the best in you. And we have seen that happen amidst of the outbreak. Students delivered food to those who were quarantined, gave up their rooms for dormitory workers and led them to do morning exercises every day, marched into the community to help people in need, joined our pandemic operations to answer public phone calls or man vaccination centres, or simply cheer on our healthcare workers. 

32.     Singapore emerged well from the abyss of the pandemic because everyone, including youths, played their part. Even as we exit the pandemic, I hope you continue to hold on to that sense of purpose and conviction that you can play a part to make the world around you a better place.

33.     Now, all of you have the honour of being the generation that went through school life during the pandemic. You lost something, but you also gained a lot, in terms of grit, resilience and a strong sense of social responsibility. 

34.     My generation lived through the Cold War which fortunately did not escalate into a nuclear war. We did not know what the future would be. Years later the world is still standing, with some things made better but other things worse.

35.     Guess what? My generation still does not know what the future will be, and we are all still learning, trying to contribute, and make things better. 

36.     Yours is living through other challenges – heightened risk of geopolitical conflict, climate change and technology reshaping the way we live our lives. Then the worst global pandemic crisis the modern world has experienced hit you. It is all somewhat daunting and uncertain. 

37.     If you do not know what the future brings, rest assured it is normal. Never believe it when people tell you this younger generation does not measure up to the last. It all depends on what you learn from your life experience beyond the classroom, and what you do with it. So let go of what is lost, live life gloriously and fruitfully and spend time with the people you love. 

38.     Thank you.