There
are too many "IF's" in this equation of hope against Hope against HOPE -
one hope over another hope and again over another hope.
Hope, hope, hope..... Banging on too many hopes. Full of hopes. Desperately optimistic!
1.
Hope that the vaccines do their work of preventing infections. And once
we achieved 80% vaccinated, we will have herd immunity. Remember, both
Pfizer and Moderna said that their vaccines' Efficacy are 95% and 90%
respectively. Pfizer CEO and Moderna CEO must be very honest people. So,
whatever they say must be the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the
truth. So, help us God!
This is banging on IF the vaccines
worked wonders - once you took the jabs as prescribed, you will have the
immunity against COVID-19. And once 80% of the population have been
vaccinated, the whole country would be immuned because 80% of the people
will not be infected. As such, we can open up the country to allow
those silent and stealthy carriers of the Covid to come in and spread
the disease as much as they can. We are immuned and we should not be
afraid of getting infected and die unnecessarily anymore.
2.
Hope that IF the vaccines do not work, at least they can prevent severe
illnesses and deaths. Remember again, Pfizer and Moderna said that their
vaccines can at least reduce severe sickness and death by 86%? What
these Big Pharmas' CEOs said must be true again, even IF the claim of
90-95% efficacy does not hold water. We, Singaporeans, are very trusting
people!
3. Hope that IF we allow those vaccinated people from
other countries to come in, they are all immuned from Covid-19 because,
just like us, they have taken the prescribed vaccines jabs already. So,
they won't be carriers of Covid-19 viruses and they won't spread the
disease amongst our population. Logical, right?
4. Hope that IF
we allow foreign very honest travellers and businessmen to come in via
our designated VTL (Virus Travelling Lanes), they will be very honest
and truthful and upright. They will not dare to deceive us by using fake
certification for their vaccination status. They will also not bring
along infected children below 12 years old, who do not need to be
vaccinated. Foreigners are very good people, you know?
5. Hope
that IF we open our legs wide wide, for every Tommy, Dicky and Herring
to come and screw us up good and proper, our healthcare system will not
deteriorate and collapse. We are so, so, so confident that all our
assumptions (IF's) are correct!
Remember, for almost two years
already, we have not only refused to expanded our healthcare system and
staffing but instead we saw the exodus of thousands of our healthcare
workers due to mass resignations. We just kept quiet and said nothing.
Only now then we start to throw money at our healthcare workers in order
to make them stay on. Only now then we start to mobilize the nursing
students to help out. Remember, we don't anyhow depend on foresight, we
are born and trained to depend on hindsight only. That's why we keep
telling people "we will monitor closely", wait and see lah.
And
we know that fighting this Pandemic is like fighting a war, yet we are
so Covid-Naive that we have not put our country on war footing. All our
Ministers and MPs are still having a good and cosy, costly and
comfortable life, safe and sound. We don't even bother to mobilize the
Civil Defence Force and the Military to help out. We only mobilized a
small part of the Police Force to show overwhelming force to a group of
foreign workers who are not happy with how they have been treated in
their dormitory.
6. Last but not least, hope that after doing all
that, our people will be safe. Infections will be reduced to the
minimum (3,000 a day) and deaths will only occur to those who have
underlying medical conditions.
See, how gangho and smart are we!
SSO - 8 November 2021.
APEC 2024 Peru. Biden shafted to a corner in the back row. Xi in front row next to Peru's President
If vaccination does not do it's job of preventing deaths, there is always the iron clad excuse that death is due to the patient's other underlying medical conditions.
ReplyDeleteLooking at the change in the manner of reporting deaths, that used to differentiate between fully vaccinated and unvaccinated, that suppressed information undoubtedly means all deaths must be from those fully vaccinated. Now, underlying medical conditions fits in like a glove to explain the cause of death..
HO Ching
ReplyDeleteWe are still not quite in a stable phase.
With the relaxation on dining, we need to watch to see if the numbers in 3-4 weeks will pop up again.
Some folks asked if we have had any clusters in Sg to justify the restrictions on dining.
While we report clusters in Sg, these are typically traceable cases.
We have a lot more untraceable cases where we have not established linkages.
Instead we know from various studies and observations of outbreaks elsewhere.
One large US study of mobility across 100 cities showed that the visits to restaurants is the top driver associated with surges in cases.
Smaller contact tracing case studies in China and Korea showed folks infected in restaurants down stream of the aircon air flow from one table to the next, or even across the room a few tables away.
Other studies show that speaking produces droplets, including aerosols, which can drop within a metre, or waft across the room several metres away.
Singing produces more and bigger droplets. And there have been various clusters from activities like choir practice.
We know masking prevents transmission esp of the large droplets, and also cuts down breathing in of large droplets and fine aerosol.
And what do we do when we dine in?
We remove our mask, not just to eat, but we chat, and laugh - and these produces droplets and aerosols to add to the air around us.
Many small restaurants have split unit aircons, which simply recirculate chilled air, and thus allow aerosols to accumulate and spread in the room.
To be safer, any small enclosed space with mask down activities should add systems to clean the air frequently.
It is not enough to just thin down the dining in capacity with restrictions in numbers.
Cleaning the air and changing the air frequently is important.
An isolation ward or an MRT train changes the air continuously and rapidly so that it is the equivalent of changing the entire volume of air 12 to 14 times an hour. This is like replacing the air totally every 4-5 minutes.
This rate of air change is known as ACH or Air Change per Hour.
Normal central aircon in offices have ACH of 4-6. This means the equivalent of replacing the indoor air with fresh air every 10-15 minutes.
Dining indoors cooled by split unit aircons is worse than dining outdoors al fresco, bcos there is typically no air change.
What can restaurants do?
They can add good quality air filters systems in their indoor spaces.
These can be as simple as fans wrapped with simple but high quality filter material to trap viral and bacterial particles; to ionisers to “grab and clump” the aerosols and drop them to the ground; to properly sized air filter systems with HEPA filters and internal UVC or other systems to destroy bacteria and viruses.
In NYC, malls could only be allowed to open if they ensure that their air handling systems are rated MERV 13 or better.
MERV means minimum efficiency reporting value.
This sets the standards for air cleaning and filtration to remove bacteria and virus size particulates.
It is worth for malls, eateries and restaurants to publish their ACH and MERV ratings perhaps?
Grandmother likes to tell long-winded Grandmother Stories. Just take them as fairy tales. Otherwise, you may be so confused that you will screw up your own lives and your families.
DeleteThe art and science of clean air in enclosed spaces should be part and parcel of the transition towards living with covid, and could be part of the public health infrastructure to help reduce the risk of future respiratory pandemics.
ReplyDeleteFinally, when should we consider ourselves to be at a more manageable and “stable” phase?
This is not a static situation.
But one good indicator is to have no more than 50 intubated ICU cases at any one time, or less than 100 ICU cases including the non-intubated high risk folks on close monitoring.
The vast majority of folks in ICU are seniors.
For vaxxed seniors in their 80s and older, their risk of ICU/death remains high if they are infected : 1 in 50.
For unvaxxed seniors 60 years and older, their risk of ICU/death is much worse than that of a fully vacced 80+ year old :
Unvaxxed 60s : 1 in 20
Unvaxxed 70s : 1 in 12
Unvaxxed 80+: 1 in 6
Key is the vaccination for the unvaxxed seniors, and boosting for our fully vaxxed seniors (and other older adults).
Today, we still have 64,000 seniors 60 years and older who are not vaccinated.
If we can vaccinate 20,000 more of our unvaxxed seniors, we will be able to relax the pressure head into the ICU, and bring that down to the 50 mark for intubated ICU.
At about 200 new vaccinations per day of our seniors, it will take us 2 months to get there.
If we can double the number of daily new vaccinations for our unvaxxed seniors, we can get there in 1 month, well before Christmas.
So how about it folks? Can we help step up to persuade the folks to be vaccinated?
True, there are folks already on palliative care, which each family will have to decide.
For seniors who are compos mentis, mentally alert, ask them if they would like to be protected against dying from Covid.
With vaccination, they can spend their remaining days with family without causing the guilt of dying earlier from a covid infection. They can also visit their favourite places.
If they are not compos mentis, then family members can consult the doctors, but ultimately should try to make the decision which their old folks would have wanted.
Many old folks would not want to prolong their lives through extraordinary means. But when it comes to the end stage, they may still treasure every day that they could have.
This is where families have to judge the actions and decisions of the final days - did their parent or sibling want to be sent to hospital, or go home; did their parent or uncle want to have oxygen supplement to help them breathe; did they want to wait for a favourite grandchild or niece to come back?
It will be difficult, and sometimes contentious, but if we can weigh the wishes of the dying, the advice of the doctors, and the likely time to death, whether in days, weeks, or months, we can make a considered decision whether or not to vaccinate our loves ones on palliative care, whether at home, in hospices, or in nursing homes.
Separately, for all our seniors who have been vaccinated, and due for boosters, the vast majority have already done their boosters or booked their slots.
This will help lower the pressure on the ICUs further.
And with higher vaccinations among our seniors, we can mitigate the increased risks of more infections from relaxing our dining, and enable us to progressively relax the dining in numbers over the next few months.
COVID-19 Singapore: Your Vaccination Has A Legally-Binding EXPIRY DATE!
ReplyDeleteAt the Straits Times Forum, a Lynn Tan Gek Lian wrote:
"I wonder how many Singapore residents are aware that the Government has mandated that a person's fully vaccinated status expires 365 plus 14 days after the second dose. This can be found in section 6, subsection 4 of the Infectious Diseases (Mass Gathering Testing for Coronavirus Disease 2019) Regulations 2021, read with the First Schedule. The first version of this regulation came into force on April 24.
Should this one-year expiry date not be made explicit by the Ministry of Health (MOH)?
There was an opportunity for MOH to do so in response to a parliamentary question on Oct 4 concerning whether the definition of "fully vaccinated" will be changed.
This must surely be a matter of public interest. It has major implications for all Singapore residents given the Government's policy of vaccination-differentiated measures. More so, it is of concern because the long-term effects of taking yet more jabs against Covid-19 are unknown.
Does the Government intend for all Singapore residents to take booster shots to be considered fully vaccinated? And when the efficacy of the booster jabs diminishes, will we be required to take yet another booster?
I hope that MOH will make public why it has regulated an expiry date for each person's "fully vaccinated" status; how the one-year period was chosen; and what will happen when a person's fully vaccinated status expires.
Lynn Tan Gek Lian"
https://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/forum/forum-expiry-date-for-fully-vaccinated-status-a-matter-of-public-interest
===========================
IMPLICATIONS
1. This legally binding fact should have been widely and regularly publicised together with the Vaccation Program reports. It is clearly stated in Section 6, Subsection 4 of the Infectious Diseases (Mass Gathering Testing for Coronavirus Disease 2019) Regulations 2021, which first came into force on April 24. Every single person who has taken the vaccination must be made aware of this legal fact. Other than legal professionals, very few commoners would go and read the laws and regulations enacted by the Government of the Day. If this has not been highlighted to every participant in the National Vaccination Program, it is not only careless but irresponsible and deceptive. Oversight cannot and must not be used as an excuse.
2. This regulation also implies that all fully vaccinated persons have to have another jab of the Covid-19 vaccine every year, at the least, in order to keep their Vaccination Status up to date.
3. That also implies that as long asvyou have been fully vaccinated (two jabs), legally nobody can force you to have a third or 4th jab within that legally-binding one year plus 14 days period.
Queen of Hearts.
Australia’s medicines regulator has sought additional information from Pfizer after an investigation by the British Medical Journal alleged serious issues with a small number of its vaccine safety trials, including claims of “falsified data” and slowness following up on adverse reactions.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.news.com.au/technology/science/human-body/tga-requests-information-from-pfizer-after-medical-journal-alleges-contractor-falsified-safety-data/news-story/342806323e802035bb1d810e561977f4
Before making the whole population to voluntarily participate in the National Vaccination Program, employing the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines, did the government's vaccines experts and leaders bothered to find out the long term effects of the mRNA vaccines?
ReplyDeleteUntil now, have the government's vaccines experts and ministers endeavoured to find out the long term effects of the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines?
If they have done so, the public would like to have their assurance and confirmation that nothing will happen to their bodies or minds, throughout their subsequent life-times, as a result of taking the mRNA vaccines.
COVID-19 SINGAPORE DAILY REPORTS
ReplyDeleteSingapore on Tuesday (Nov 9) reported 3,397 new cases of Covid-19 and 12 more deaths due to complications from the disease.
The daily infection tally is up from the 2,470 reported on Monday.
MOH said that there were 68 patients who were unstable and under close monitoring in intensive care units (ICUs) to prevent further deterioration, an increase of 62 from the previous day.
In addition, there were 72 patients who were critically ill and intubated in ICUs, five more than previous day.
Malaysian drug trafficker on death row with several other inmates have contracted Covid-19 while being locked up in the Changi Prison. How so is the most mysterious and curious question.
There are 409 ICU beds, of which 296 are now occupied — 140 by Covid-19 patients.
The current overall ICU utilisation rate is 72.4 per cent, up from the 68.5%.
MOH's regular daily mantra: "People aged 60 and above continue to be more adversely affected by Covid-19, especially if they are not vaccinated."
Among the new infections recorded on Tuesday, 3,222 were in the community, 169 were made up of migrant worker dormitory residents and the remaining six were imported.
Out of 3,222 community cases, there were only 513 people above the age of 60, a 15.9%. This is well below the population ratio. Nothing for the alarmists to be alarmed.
The ratio of community cases in the past week compared with the week before stood at 0.82, down from 0.84 reported the day before. This is the seventh consecutive day the weekly infection growth rate is under 1.
In the mean time, the new Minister of Health is requiring Covid-19 patients unvaccinated by choice to pay for medical care. Is this unethical? Is this immoral? Is this illegal? Has he over-stepped his power as a Minister?
The 12 who died were aged between 58 and 95.
“All of them, except for an unvaccinated individual, had various underlying medical conditions,” MOH said without giving more details. This is an indication that 11 of the 12 who have been killed by Covid-19 were fully vaccinated.
In total, 523 people in Singapore have died of Covid-19. Before the Crazy Living And Dying With Covid-19 Scam, oops I mean Scheme was implemented two months ago, the total number of deaths in Singapore was only 53. That means the last two months of madness have cost our country about ten folds of precious lives unnecessarily.
Officially, Singapore has registered a total of 224,200 coronavirus cases since January 2020. This figure has to be taken with a heavy pinch of salt.