3/12/2020

Covid19 - Social distancing at least 2 metres

The authorities will have to double down on measures within Singapore, even as some basic surveillance at the borders continue, said the minister, who is the co-chair of a multi-ministry task force set up to handle the coronavirus.

“We will look at the whole range of social distancing measures,” he said at a press conference held at the National Press Centre.

The Ministry of Health announced on Tuesday that senior-centric activities by government agencies will be suspended for two weeks. Over time, the Government will have to ramp up and implement more social distancing measures, Mr Wong said.


READ: COVID-19: People's Association to suspend courses and activities for seniors

“We will look at a fuller range of social distancing measures we can put in place including for public events, community activities, school closures, workplace social distancing - including things like staggered hours, telecommuting - as well as religious services too. We will cover a broad spectrum and we will see what we should put in place,” Mr Wong said.

Singapore already has other social distancing measures like isolating patients, putting close contacts on quarantine and issuing Stay-Home Notices, he added.  CNA

The above quotes from CNA show how serious the Singapore govt is taking this Covid19 threat to the wellbeing of Singaporeans. The latest spurt in number of new infected cases due to irresponsible social behaviour has prompted the govt to close down on many activities associated with senior citizens. The main point is to keep social mixing down to a minimum with social contacts to be kept at maybe a minimum of 2 metres apart to be safe. Big social gatherings are to be avoided.

The concept sounds very good and should be reasonably effective. The biggest loophole and unavoidable is the pack trains carrying commuters all over the islands. Many of them are less than 20 cm apart with some idiots unconsciously chose to stand very close to other commuters even if the train is not really full when they could keep a reasonable distance from other commuters. Most of these are wildlife from countries where sticking close to each other with no respect to the private space of a stranger is the norm. You can smell them whenever they are close to you in the trains.

So how to maintain the 2 metre distancing gap when the trains are carrying 1 or 2 million commuters daily?  This is like putting money into a pocket with a big hole in it.  Heheheh, 6.9m population or 10m or 15m population is the way to go.A serious infectious disease could wipe out the whole population within weeks.

What do you think?

3/11/2020

Lee Kuan Yew being ridiculed and disrespected so soon after his death

The family feud of Lee Kuan Yew is still brewing. I am not taking sides and do not want to be involved. What saddens me is that Lee Kuan Yew was the founding father or one of the founding fathers of modern Singapore. It is written in our history books. The least Singaporeans can do for him is not to badmouth him when he can no longer defend himself.

Today, everywhere, in the main media and social media, Lee Kuan Yew is like an old useless football being kicked around by anyone as they like it. He has been called senile, easily misled, did not know what he was doing in his last few years alive. He cannot read, cannot understand law, cannot understand a legal document like his own will even when he was the one that wanted it changed. And people around him could do anything they wanted with him as if he was a walking dead. Were these true?

What happened to the tough and sharp talking double honours top politician from Cambridge University Law School? Are Singaporeans expected to believe this is the Lee Kuan Yew they admired and held in deference, the man that ruled Singapore and brought Singapore from the Third World to the First World, highly regarded as a world leader?

If this saga goes on like this, soon this founding father of Singapore would have been so belittled to a point that Singaporeans would lose all respect for him, thinking and believing that he was a senile old man, a foolish man and could be easily misled while still alive. Dragging this man over a pool of mud is very disrespectful and unbecoming.

Let' spare this man and his good name and stop tarnishing him so soon after his death. Have some respect for the man even if you dislike him or disagree with him.

My God, when would this nonsense stop?

PS. This is reported in TRE in an article by Lim Tean

The Straits Times today have reported that sales of LKY coins and copper busts were stopped just hours after launch due to online criticism from netizens.

From the ST article ‘Many netizens criticised the latest launch, saying the medallions and busts in Mr Lee’s likeness went against his wishes, as he had said he did not want to be memorialised.

Facebook user Dereth Tan wrote: “Didn’t the late Mr Lee explicitly (express) his wish to not be idolised in such a way? Why is this simple request being disrespected?”

Some thought the use of his image was political in what could be an election year, while others said it was in poor taste to profit from his image through the sale of medallions and busts.’

3/10/2020

Singapore Parliament - Guess who is not there

Meanwhile, those watching Ms Lim ask her question also noticed the rather-empty Parliament session. “Thank you Sylvia Lim for speaking up in Parliament about spending Government money wisely,” wrote All Singapore Stuff on its Facebook page. “But more importantly, who is she speaking to? How come looks like so many empty seats again?” the caption added.

 One person said that Ms Lim should have asked why she was scheduled to speak during a  near-empty Parliament sitting. Others called it “disrespectful to the voters and taxpayers”.

 Another person proposed that a session should not proceed if a certain number of MPs were not present, with penalties for those who did not attend.


The above is posted in www.theindependent.sg and Sylvia Lim was seen asking the House how Mindef determines the value and pricing of a contract, especially the one concerning F35s and the spending of $2.75b. What is not surprising is the nearly empty House, and you could literally count the number of MPs looking so indifferent and disinterested when Sylvia was talking.

Of course the picture only showed a small section of the Parliament and the rest of the House could be fully occupied. But looking at the picture it tells a very pathetic story about the Singapore Parliament at face value. Who was there and who was not there? Was there a quorum? Think should have. Even if the rest of the seats not shown were fully occupied, the picture still shows a substantial number of MPs, including the Speaker, were not there.

Is this a normal thing, something acceptable? Obviously from the comments mentioned above, they were furious and felt cheated. And half empty and very empty, not sure how empty Parliament has been a thing for a long time, often shown on CNA. By now this is taken as the norm, this is what Singapore Parliament is.  I thought when the opposition MPs spoke, the Whip would make sure govt MPs would be present to make a stand or to question and challenge them. No, not necessary anymore?

Or maybe half a house is good enough to deal with the handful of opposition MPs.

What do you think? MPs and Ministers not interested in attending Parliament or Parliament has nothing important to discuss, talking about condoms and dog and cats?

PS. This Covid19 is good for Parliament attendance. Blame it on the virus.

3/09/2020

Covid19 -What will Singapore do next?

What will the Singapore xxxxxxxxxxxxx do next?

Lower the Code Orange to Code Yellow, remove some existing restrictions, open the floodgates to allow any Tom Dick and Harry to come to Singapore and freely distribute the corona-viruses?

Above is a comment by an anonymous blogger asking what would Singapore do next given the experience of Italy with infected cases shooting to high heavens? Now, how to answer such a question to be meaningful?  I know many people are wondering if Singapore would continue with its open leg policy to let every wildlife to come in as it means money, plenty of easy money in terms of levies and fees and also to boost up a dying economy that is struggling to stay off the recession path.

Let's look at the statistics available on the Covid19 pandemic and see if they make any good sense and can help Singapore govt to work out a sensible immigration policy that could still allow it to continue to collect easy money by allowing more wildlife to come in to provide jobs for Singaporeans. Look at the below chart provided by CNA and the countries that are most affected by the Covid19 virus.


NOVEL CORONAVIRUS CASES
PLACESCONFIRMED CASESREPORTED DEATHS
China80,6953,097
South Korea7,31350
Iran6,566194
Italy5,883233
France94916
Germany7950
Cruise ship (Diamond Princess)6967
Japan4556
Spain3748
Switzerland2811
United States21319
United Kingdom2102
Belgium2000
Netherlands1881
Sweden1610
Norway1470
Singapore1380
Hong Kong1143
Austria990
Malaysia990
As of 8:19pm Mar 8, 2020




Statistically speaking, not my personal opinion, there is a clear statement from the above chart that says Covid19 is a disease of rich countries. Look, other than Malaysia and Singapore, no SE Asian country or South Asian or African country is seriously affected, did not even deserve to be in the chart. What does this mean? The virus likes rich people, likes to go to rich countries, likes to go for cruises, likes to go to churches, to casinos, and other than China, S Korea and Japan, it has a penchant for Europeans, and this is only the beginning. More and more Europeans and Americans would be visited by the virus.

What has this got to say about Singapore's open leg immigration policy? Can one use the above statistics to say that wildlife from poor SE Asia, South Asia and Africa are safe bets and can continue to come in freely, free from Covid19 virus, or at least the chances are very slim? This looks like a piece of good news for Singapore's immigration dependent economy. Can continue to do as before, no need to stop wildlife from coming in if they are from poor countries.

What do you think? My use of statistics make sense or not?

Would our politicians use the above statistics to justify the continuation of the open leg immigration policy to grow our economy?

3/08/2020

Coronavirus - Did The Virus Originate in the US?

When it started in Wuhan, the evil and irresponsible Americans quickly put the fingers at China as the origin of this virus, even leaking from a Wuhan Lab. As the story unfolds, more information and data are showing that the virus did not originate from China. The Wuhan or China strain is different from those found in Italy, Iran, South Korea and other places. And cases are sprouting out in all the far corners of the world, even in floating cruise ships. Why and how?

The only country that has all the 5 strains of coronavirus is the USA. There were few cases reported in the USA, not reported before the Wuhan incident is because the USA were not testing them. Ignorance is bliss. They did not test them, thousands of Americans died and buried presuming dying of natural death or common flu.

China found out because it was the first country that had a widespread and tested it. Now that every country is testing it, they quickly found that the coronavirus is in their country. The more they test, the more cases are found. And many have no contact with virus affected countries. The virus flew from Wuhan China to the Seattle Nursing Home in Washington state? How?  What about the cruise ship floating outside San Francisco? Why were there so many Americans affected by the coronavirus in Diamond Princess? These only prove that the virus is everywhere in the USA, and started spreading much earlier than in Wuhan. China has locked down cities to stop its spread. The virus from China could not be spreading all over the world overnight.

Read the article below to have a better idea. Only one country that have the 5 strains of coronavirus and is just starting to test them in a very small way. If they could they would not want to test them, not wanting to know that the virus is all over the USA. The USA could be the breeding ground for all the coronavirus but blaming China for it to mislead the world that they are not to be blamed, they are innocent.

Who is not transparent, who is lying to the world about this coronavirus? Stop the white lie.

 

Japan, China and Taiwan Reports on the Origin of the Virus

The Western media quickly took the stage and laid out the official narrative for the outbreak of the new coronavirus which appeared to have begun in China, claiming it to have originated with animals at a wet market in Wuhan.

In fact the origin was for a long time unknown but it appears likely now, according to Chinese and Japanese reports, that the virus originated elsewhere, from multiple locations, but began to spread widely only after being introduced to the market.
More to the point, it appears that the virus did not originate in China and, according to reports in Japanese and other media, may have originated in the US....


Taiwan Virologist Suggests the Coronavirus Originated in the US
Then, Taiwan ran a TV news program on February,27,(click here to access video (Chinese), that presented diagrams and flow charts suggesting the coronavirus originated in the US. (6)....

One of his main points is that the type infecting Taiwan exists only in Australia and the US and, since Taiwan was not infected by Australians, the infection in Taiwan could have come only from the US.
The basic logic is that the geographical location with the greatest diversity of virus strains must be the original source because a single strain cannot emerge from nothing. He demonstrated that only the US has all the five known strains of the virus (while Wuhan and most of China have only one, as do Taiwan and South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam, Singapore, and England, Belgium and Germany), constituting a thesis that the haplotypes in other nations may have originated in the US.
Korea and Taiwan have a different haplotype of the virus than China, perhaps more infective but much less deadly, which would account for a death rate only 1/3 that of China.
Neither Iran nor Italy were included in the above tests, but both countries have now deciphered the locally prevalent genome and have declared them of different varieties from those in China, which means they did not originate in China but were of necessity introduced from another source. It is worth noting that the variety in Italy has approximately the same fatality rate as that of China, three times as great as other nations, while the haplotype in Iran appears to be the deadliest with a fatality rate of between 10% and 25%. (7) (8) (9)
Due to the enormous amount of Western media coverage focused on China, much of the world believes the coronavirus spread to all other nations from China, but this now appears to have been proven wrong. With about 50 nations scattered throughout the world having identified at least one case at the time of writing, it would be very interesting to examine virus samples from each of those nations to determine their location of origin and the worldwide sources and patterns of spread.
The Virologist further stated that the US has recently had more than 200 “pulmonary fibrosis” cases that resulted in death due to patients’ inability to breathe, but whose conditions and symptoms could not be explained by pulmonary fibrosis. He said he wrote articles informing the US health authorities to consider seriously those deaths as resulting from the coronavirus, but they responded by blaming the deaths on e-cigarettes, then silenced further discussion. …
The Taiwanese doctor then stated the virus outbreak began earlier than assumed, saying, “We must look to September of 2019”.
He stated the case in September of 2019 where some Japanese traveled to Hawaii and returned home infected, people who had never been to China. This was two months prior to the infections in China and just after the CDC suddenly and totally shut down the Fort Detrick bio-weapons lab claiming the facilities were insufficient to prevent loss of pathogens. (10) (11)
He said he personally investigated those cases very carefully (as did the Japanese virologists who came to the same conclusion).. This might indicate the coronavirus had already spread in the US but where the symptoms were being officially attributed to other diseases, and thus possibly masked.
The prominent Chinese news website Huanqiu related one case in the US where a woman’s relative was told by physicians he died of the flu, but where the death certificate listed the coronavirus as the cause of death. On February 26, ABC News affiliate KJCT8 News Network reported that a woman recently told the media that her sister died on from coronavirus infection. Montrose, Colorado resident Almeta Stone said, “They (the medical staff) kept us informed that it was the flu, and when I got the death certificate, there was a coronavirus in the cause of death.” (12)
We cannot ascertain the number of such cases in the US but since the CDC apparently has no reliable test kits and is conducting little or no testing for the virus, there may be others.
 In the past two years (during the trade war) China has suffered several pandemics:
  • February 15, 2018: H7N4 bird flu. Sickened at least 1,600 people in China and killed more than 600. Many chickens killed. China needs to purchase US poultry products.
  • June, 2018: H7N9 bird flu. Many chickens killed. China needs to purchase US poultry products.
  • August, 2018: outbreak of African swine flu. Same strain as Russia, from Georgia. Millions of pigs killed. China needs to purchase US pork products.
  • May 24, 2019: massive infestation of armyworms in 14 province-level regions in China, which destroy most food crops. Quickly spread to more than 8,500 hectares of China’s grain production. They produce astonishing numbers of eggs. China needs to purchase US agricultural products – corn, soybeans.
  • December, 2019: Coronavirus appearance puts China’s economy on hold.
  • January, 2020: China is hit by a “highly pathogenic” strain of bird flu in Hunan province. Many chickens died, many others killed. China needs to purchase US poultry products.

The standard adage is that bad luck happens in threes, not sixes.
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Larry Romanoff is a retired management consultant and businessman. He has held senior executive positions in international consulting firms, and owned an international import-export business. He has been a visiting professor at Shanghai’s Fudan University, presenting case studies in international affairs to senior EMBA classes. Mr. Romanoff lives in Shanghai and is currently writing a series of ten books generally related to China and the West. He can be contacted at: 2186604556@qq.com. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.