THE PANDEMIC EXPERT

professor leo yee sin, 60
Executive director, National Centre for Infectious Diseases

In the past 10 months, Professor Leo Yee Sin, executive director of the National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID) had been working 12 to 14-hour days. And like the rest of us, she’s looking forward to travel again.

Everyone is yearning for a holiday, right? Me too,” she says with a small chuckle. That holiday would be a well-deserved break for Prof Leo. After all, in this long-drawn battle against Covid-19, many of us had turned to her for her expertise in infectious diseases.

“People look towards us to provide information,” the head of NCID acknowledges. “But when the information is scanty or non-existent, it can be a challenge. We just have to make the best guess and judgement, and at the same time, utilise our resources to gather more information and give us clarity.”