Petition for Professor Paul Tambyah to lead Multi-Ministerial Task Force

A petition has been created on Change.org by Mimi Lee, calling for Professor Paul Tambyah to lead the COVID Task Force Medical Team.

Professor Paul Tambyah is the President-Elect of the International Society for Infectious Diseases (ISID) and the Chairman of the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP). He is also a professor at the National University of Singapore Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine.

In the petition, Ms Lee described Singapore as “Sad with disappointment but there’s still HOPE…”. This was because the members of the Task Force had warned of a potential second wave of infections, and they “have yet to engage our very own best medical expert to lead the Covid-19 task force medical team”.

Ms Lee emphasised that this is a national issue and “has nothing to do with politics” and that Singapore’s leaders should consider Professor Tambyah.

Furthermore, Ms Lee added that Singapore could not afford to go through another Circuit Breaker as many more would lose jobs and businesses would have to be shuttered. She also wrote about the frontline workers who must be mentally and physically tired.

She highlighted that Professor Tambyah was currently in Singapore, and that she believes he is ready to help the country as much as he can.

The petition is addressed to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, President Halimah Yacob, and Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat.

As of the time of writing, the petition had garnered close to 5,500 signatures.

In response to the petition, some netizens agreed that it was a good idea.

However, others thought that it was Singaporeans who were making the situation worse.

Many others were skeptical of the petition, especially with the elections having just ended recently.

Others were worried about Professor Tambyah being made to take responsibility if the situation does not become better.