The Demand for Surge Capacity
In the context of this paper, surge capacity refers to the ability to mobilize
resources (such as PPEs, vaccines and HCWs) to combat the outbreak of a pandemic.
Singapore’s response to SARS in 2003 illustrates the importance of being able to
increase surge capacity swiftly to deal with an infectious disease outbreak. In the
Asia Pacific region, this problem continues to hamper many countries’ ability to
combat infectious diseases (Putthasri, et al. 2009). For many public health
organizations in Asia, it is a matter of fact that they are unable to deal with
pandemics because the resources to do so are simply absent (Balkhy, 2008;
Hanvoravongchai, et al. 2010; Lai, 2012b; Oshitani, et al. 2008). Meanwhile, there
are evidences which suggest that surge capacity alone is not the full answer. For
example, during the SARS outbreak, abundant resources contribute an important but
not all-encompassing element in the fight against these pandemics. As it turned out,
when different stakeholders brought to the task-at-hand their unique skill sets and
resources, they actually complicated the fight due to their lack of synergy. In fact,
abundant resources without synergy might even undermine collaborative efforts