The first and most immediate challenge is to deal with the covid pandemic. The severity of the second wave in India is worrisome. Some other countries have also been seen large increase in infection and deaths.
Will Singapore be caught in a crisis of the same scale as India. Will we see a large increase in infection that will get out of control, overwhelm our health system and bring large number of deaths?
This is not the only challenge.
We still have the challenge of taking care of large numbers of people who have lost their jobs during the lockdown and border closures. They were given financial assistance in 2020, but this assistance will be scaled down significantly or entirely in 2021.
Looking ahead, we also need to worry about our food security. With trade tensions, disruption to the supply chains, and the crisis faced in many countries, there is a big risk that this will apply to the food supply. As Singapore is almost totally dependent on the import of food, we will be severely stressed if the supply of food is disrupted.
Our government leaders have to be aware and addressed all the three key challenges.
It they focus only on the first challenge, namely to deal with the covid pandemic, they may neglect the other two challenges. Worse, the severe actions taken to deal with the first challenge may create a bigger problem with the recovery of the economy and providing jobs for our people in the new economic environment of the future.
This will be a real test of the quality of our leaders.
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