Managing COVID-19 in a Novel, Rapidly Deployable Community Isolation Quarantine Facility

• DOI: 10.7326/m20-4746
• Publication Date: 2020-09-17T19:01:31Z
• Authors: Ming Li Chia; Dickson Hong Him ...; Kheng Sit Lim; Christopher Wei Y...; Hiang Khoon Tan; Yan Ru Tan
• Keywords: Singapore; 03 medical and health sciences; 0302 clinical medicine; SARS-CoV-2; Facility Design and Construction; Quarantine; COVID-19; Humans; Pandemics; Telemedicine; 3. Good health

Singapore is one of the most densely populated small island-states in the world. During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, Singapore implemented large-scale institutional isolation units called Community Care Facilities (CCFs) to combat the outbreak in the community by housing low-risk COVID-19 patients from April to August 2020. The CCFs were created rapidly by converting existing public spaces and used a protocolized system, augmented by telemedicine to enable a low health care worker-patient ratio (98 health care workers for 3200 beds), to operate these unique facilities. In the first month, a total of 3758 patients were admitted to 4 halls, 4929 in-house medical consults occurred, 136 patients were transferred to a hospital, 1 patient died 2 weeks after discharge, and no health care workers became infected. This article shares the authors' experience in operating these massive-scale isolation facilities while prioritizing safety for all and ensuring holistic patient care in the face of a public health crisis and lean health care resources.