Countries around the world have brought attention to domestic, family, or intimate partner violence in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, especially since rising unemployment is associated with a higher number of personal crises. In Singapore, cases of family violence, child abuse, spousal abuse, and elder abuse were documented even before the pandemic, and now – amidst a circuit breaker in Singapore – these worries deserve greater and continued attention.

The discourse surrounding the universal basic income (UBI) and its experiments has gained traction around the world, including in Finland, which just announced, last week, the findings of its two-year UBI evaluation study. And while Finland was preparing to launch its UBI experiment in 2016, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said Singapore cannot afford a basic income.

Singapore faces a rapidly ageing population. And before the pandemic, social service interventions to address isolation and loneliness revolved around community befriending programmes, counselling services, as well as day activities and rehabilitation. However, what happens during a pandemic, especially with a virus most deadly to the most vulnerable?

The late American celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain described Singapore’s food scene as having: “More variety, more options, more specialties from many lands. And cheap”. Yet, since the first coronavirus case was announced in the country, F&B businesses have had to adjust. Through conversations with an F&B owner and a team which created a crowdsourced hawker directory, we want to understand both the problems as well as the ground-up solutions.