Couple
months ago, Aussie media were saying the Morrison government was
working on an ambitious plan that would establish Singapore as a
quarantine gateway, holiday destination and potential vaccination hub
for returning Australians, international students and business
travellers.
The deal would help clear the log jam of
approximately 40,000 Australians stranded overseas, boost tourism to
Australia from Singaporean nationals – and third countries down the
track – and kick-start the multibillion-dollar market for international
students at Australian universities, which has been smashed by border
closures.
Multiple Morrison government sources, who asked not to
be named so they could discuss details of the proposal, told The
Sun-Herald and The Sunday Age Trade Minister Dan Tehan and Government
Services Minister Stuart Robert were driving the plan and leading
behind-the-scenes policy work.
Under the plan, Singaporean
nationals who have had their vaccination would be able to travel to
Australia for work, study or holidays without having to complete two
weeks’ hotel quarantine.
It could also be possible for people
from third countries to enter Australia via Singapore after completing
two weeks’ quarantine in the city-state.
The use of Singapore to
bring Australians home and to restart tourism and business travel would
significantly ease pressure on the states’ hotel quarantine systems and
the federal government’s Howard Springs facility.
For Singapore,
the proposal would bring in revenue for its hotel operators and the
broader tourism sector, as well as ensuring it maintained its status as
regional hub for flights.
Anonymous
PS. The above concept is not the same as air bubble where citizens of both countries can travel to the other country under a quid pro quo arrangement. The planned concept is to turn Singapore into a leper quarantine colony. Every leper, covid infected person, can come here and get quarantined before certified free to proceed to Australia. If more covid infected persons are here, all the way from the airlines, airport, buses/taxis they took to the quarantine centres, plus the air, would be infected with Covid virus.
Is this what we want? Is this safe? Is Singapore going to risk the island being infected for a few dollars?
Anonymous
Planning to fail is even worse than not planning. Who in his right mind would want to play with fire that can easily go out of control. Do not overestimate our COVID19 control effort. A tiny slip somewhere is a heavy price to pay.
ReplyDeleteWe have seen it already. When the outbreak started we did not turn our eyes towards the dormitories and got caught badly. We thought we had an airtight defence at the airport and yet B1617 slipped through and is creating havoc. Do we need a third mistake which is going to be self inflicted?
In desperate times, desperadoes are aplenty. Desperadoes will aplomb desperate measures.
ReplyDeleteIf desperadoes are left alone to do according to their whims and fancies, they will create havoc and disasters for the society and community they live in, because one desperate measure will lead to another desperate measure.
Ultimately, each and every measure become desperate measures.
Do we want the desperadoes as our leaders forever? This is the vital question we should now ponder within ourselves and within our circle of friends.
What Kishore Mahbubani said and didn't said in today's ST: "The only real bright star in our region is Indonesia, which had the wisdom to re-elect a truly gifted leader, President Joko Widodo, who enjoys enormous trust among his people because he genuinely cares for them." That means Sinkies kena sai?
ReplyDelete"Deng Xiaoping understood this well. When he opened China up to globalisation, he said that open windows also bring in flies."
"..my fellow Singaporeans, please do not stop airing your frustrations. Covid-19 is placing extraordinary demands on us and on all our institutions. Complaining gives useful feedback, and in any case, seems to be an integral part of being Singaporean."
COVID-19 Pandemic: Latest Wave Of Infections Is Due To The Stubborn Foolhardy Open-Leg Policy
ReplyDelete"Singapore reported 30 new community COVID-19 cases as of noon on Friday (May 21), said the Ministry of Health (MOH).
Twenty-two of the community infections are linked to previous cases, while eight are currently unlinked. Among them, 17 cases had already been placed on quarantine earlier, said the ministry."
What the report did not tell us are:
Fact 1: 30 cases, out of which 22 are community infections.
Deduction 1: That means that 8 cases are imported infections. This means that some airport staff, immigration officers, nurses doing the COVID-19 swaps, airport helpers, airport police, eating places and shops in the airports, taxi drivers, hotel staff and travel guides may have already been infected.
Conclusion: Infected persons are still being imported into the country in order to give the COVID-19 coronavirus (probably the B1617 series from India and other South Asian states) a chance to spread in Singapore and create more sufferings for Singaporeans? This must not be allowed to go on indefinitely. It has been going on for far too long already. It must be stopped immediately.
Fact 2: 22 community cases, 17 have been placed on quarantine earlier.
Deduction 2: That means 5 of the infected were not quarantined and left free to roam, to spread the disease in the wider community.
Conclusion: This means the present safety measures are truly inadequate and needs urgent fine-tunning immediately. No more dragging the feet.
Fact 3: 22 community cases, out of which 8 are not linked to any existing clusters.
Deduction 3: That means the 8 unlinked cases are not connected to any existing clusters and, therefore, they could have formed new clusters in other places that the present faulty detection system is not able to detect.
Conclusion: A reactive, wait and see monitoring system can never nip the virus in its track. The best it has been doing is to chase after blue-ass flies.
Recommendation:
It is high time, the supreme authority of the land comes down to earth and use more practical and more effective common sense, instead of listening to the faulty advice of the so-called experts, who are no experts in this COVID-19 Pandemic whatsoever. They are merely making educated guesses at best.
LIPS
P/S:
One may be studying about viruses for all his/her life but every new virus, or mutation of virus, is different. No one can be an expert yet when facing a new virus or its mutations.
One can only be an expert after one is himself/herself and his/her family members are infected with the new virus or new mutants, and survive to tell the tale of personal experience and subsequent studies and experiments on that new virus and/or its mutations.