No visitors allowed at all wards from Sept 24 for a month as more hospital workers, patients get Covid-19

 

A greater number of hospital staff members, patients and visitors are being infected by Covid-19, so all hospitals here will not be allowing visitors from Friday (Sept 24) until Oct 23 to curb the disease spread and reduce the strain on hospital bed capacity.

Higher-risk patients visiting emergency departments will have to undergo an antigen rapid test for the coronavirus.

The Ministry of Health (MOH) said in a press release on Wednesday that these tightened measures will apply to all public, community and private hospitals.

With the rise in community cases over the past weeks, the ministry said that it has detected more Covid-19 cases among hospital staff members, patients and visitors.

“The detection of these cases had led to ward closures and staff quarantine, which had impacted some hospitals, putting a strain on hospital bed capacity and staffing at a time when more hospital beds are ramped up to care for hospitalised Covid-19 patients,” MOH said.

The latest move will help to safeguard hospital capacity, it added.

Although visits to hospital wards will be suspended from this Friday to Oct 23, both dates inclusive, hospitals will make case-by-case exceptions for visitors of the following patients:

Patients who are in critical condition

Patients who are young children

Birthing or postpartum mothers

Patients requiring extra care support from caregivers such as those who are mentally incapacitated or family members who are undergoing caregiver training

Such patients will only be allowed one pre-designated visitor who may enter the ward once a day.

Patients in critical condition may have up to five pre-designated visitors with a maximum of two visitors at the patient’s bedside at any one time.

All visitors will need to produce a valid negative antigen rapid test or polymerase chain reaction test result obtained within the last 24 hours of each visit.

All visitors regardless of vaccination status must comply with the conditions except those who have recovered from Covid-19 and are able to present a valid pre-event test exemption notice.

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Visitors must also wear a face mask with good filtration capability such as surgical masks or two-layered reusable masks.

There must be no eating or drinking in the inpatient wards. Visitors must not use the patients’ toilets in the wards and must avoid sitting on patients’ beds.

TESTING AT EMERGENCY UNITS

From Friday, higher-risk patients, regardless of the vaccination status, must take a mandatory antigen rapid test at 24-hour emergency clinics or departments.

Higher-risk patients include:

Those who are on beds in emergency rooms for prolonged observation, whether in the short-stay unit or extended diagnostic and treatment unit

Those who are required to undergo mask-off assessment or procedures lasting for 15 minutes or more, or both

Visitors or caregivers accompanying patients during the observation period will also have to take an antigen rapid test

Accompanying persons may have to pay for the tests, depending on the hospitals.

MOH said that it has increased the frequency of surveillance testing for hospital workers, as well as vendors who work in the hospital, in order to identify at the earliest possible time the staff members who are infected with Covid-19.

Anonymous

General heading Childhood Education

“Early childhood leadership certification is needed for preschool teachers to be qualified to be a principal. Even with a degree of early childhood and numerous ten years of experience does not qualify,” said a netizen. “So may I ask what kind of qualifications and pre-experience this general has in regards to early childhood? We are talking of education of your young children…not the army.” 

Meanwhile, Facebook user Catherine Dee asked if “retired generals could stop being allowed to lead ministries,” particularly those they have no experience in. “If the government really has to do this, please start them from the bottom to gain experience and work their way up first rather than dropping them from a helicopter,” she added in a comment liked by over 200 netizens. 

“Why doesn’t the ministry look at promoting someone with understanding, experience and track record in the sector instead of parachuting someone without the relevant experience or knowledge of the ground despite his impressive military credentials?” asked Facebook user Shermin Chen. 

“A military guy in early childhood education…and none of the existing early childhood education personal can take up…seriously…,” added a netizen.  theindependent.sg

BG Tan Chee Wee to be CEO of early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA). And this has raised eyebrows in the education industry and parents for obvious reasons.  The objections were understandable. Ask a foreign recruitment agency, they will throw out his application for lack of relevant experience and qualification. The general is so lucky that the govt did not contract the search agencies to go hunting for a foreign talent overseas. It was purely a parachute drop from the sky. Retired generals need not apply for jobs. Jobs would be offered to them, as CEOs here and there.

Look at the positive side, they are lucky that they did not appoint a third world funny graduate with funny experience from a funny university to take over this job, aka fake or cheat. If they did, the children would turn out funny as well, if not illiterate. Be grateful.

Another good thing that may come out from this is that the children will be well prepared for NS, with a good foundation in military jargons and way of life. The children are likely to be tougher than otherwise with boot camps modified as child play.

If one is prepared to look at the good side, there are many. If one is looking from the negative side, there will also be many, just like CECA. You can bet, just like CECA, the govt would have all the good things to say about this appointment.

AUKUS or FAUKUS? Another evil white men's scheme

 The Anglo Saxons still think they could rule the world. The defeats after defeats of the evil mighty American Empire in the hands of militarily weak and poor Asian countries still did not teach them anything. Before the curtain falls in Afghanistan, they are shifting all their attention to the Pacific Ocean with China in their cross hair and the prize of Asean as their new colonies.

What ever AUKUS or FUCKUS, would be no different from the lame QUAD. The result would be the same as in Korea, in Vietnam, in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria etc etc. All the military hardware would not win wars except little battles. And to think that the clueless Americans could think that a little Australia could change their fortune in Asia Pacific is pathetic. A mere 22m white men in a stolen piece of land in Asia Pacific to become their new foothold to remain as the hegemon in Asia Pacific? The population of just Malaysia is bigger than Australia, and there are 250m Indonesians next door.

The evil white men is everywhere building military alliances and military bases to control the world, to remain as the white evil Empire. Their fingers are everywhere, in every country, poking here and there. Countries of the world must place more mouse traps, the snapping type, to snap off the itchy white fingers.

Hiding under the names of peace, democracy and human rights, they are inciting wars, agitating for wars, and building military bases, manufacturing weapons, just to have more people killed and more countries destroyed. The Indonesians are worried, and so are the Malaysians. South East Asia aka Asean must remain a Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality, not on papers but for real. After the defeat in Vietnam and fleeing, South East Asia was blessed for nearly 40 years of peace, stability and prosperity without the Americans warring in the region. 

The fear now is that peace would turn into war with the evil Americans coming back and with a pseudo Asian country but basically a white Anglo Saxon country in Australia happily playing the role of the front man. Asean countries must be united and resolute in preventing the region from becoming another war zone, another Afghanistan and the Asean countries and economies destroyed and people died and wounded, when the evil white men start another war here.

The whole intent and purpose of the white men are their dominance and their Empire, to rule over the coloured people they regard as subhumans. They are the rulers and coming here to rule.

Not in the 21st century, not when Asians have risen, have stood up, have awaken, and would not be ruled and bullied by the evil white men again.

THE REAL CANCER THAT IS PERMEATING DEEPLY INTO THE SINGAPORE SOCIETY IS ELITISM, NOT RACISM...

 ISN’T A SYSTEM OF CLASS FILTERED BY MERITOCRACY STILL A SYSTEM OF CLASS?

Lord Young (1958) , the man who coined the word meritocracy, clearly understood the real dangers of meritocracy if misused.

Meritocracy, like other man-made ideas such as capitalism and democracy, are dangerous concepts when applied to their extreme ends.

In Singapore, we have witnessed Mr Umbrage who talked down to the reporter, Mr slip-of-the-tongue Minister who called an NMP illiterate and a Senior Minister who sees anyone earning less than S$500,000 per annum mediocre.

What happens in a society when mechanisms of mobility turn into fortresses of privilege?

What happens when meritocrats become insufferably smug, much more so than aristocrats who are measurably humbled by knowing they have achieved advancement quite often not on their own merit but from inheritance?

The carapace of “merit”, Young argued, had only inoculated the winners from shame and reproach.

Put simply, winners of the “merit” game can easily and dangerously be led to believe that their success in life is solely due to themselves and others who fail only have themselves to blame.

This is the meritocracy trap that Singapore has fallen into and a big dose of socialism maybe needed to dig the society out of the deep hole.

RACISM IS THE RED HERRING OF POLITICAL DISTRACTION...

Racism is a political red herring used by the ruling elites to distract from the real issues of inequality, social justice, loss of dignity and self-esteem amongst the commoners, policies that over reward a few and under-compensate the rest on the false narrative that cognitive jobs pay a thousand times more than honest blue-collared jobs.

The hypothesis that minorities will always feel racially discriminated by a majority population is bollocks. Have you ever heard of a minority white Swiss banker, German CEO and British scientist becoming a victim of racism in Singapore?

Why is there no racism amongst the rich, educated and famous people in the world?

Billionaire Oprah is an icon in America, regardless of her race. Will Smith has no problems booking the best restaurants in Beverly Hills at short notice. The mega-rich are colour-blind. And I am also willing to bet that our highly paid MPs, mayors, and ministers of minority races are colour-blind and do not suffer the least from racism too.

Societies divided by class and caste have existed long before societies understood racism. Policies can only get you thus far and beyond which the free and ruthless market takes over.

There may be an EIP system to prevent racial enclaves in the HDB flat allocation system. But has any study been done to investigate elite racial enclaves amongst our privileged new citizens (> 500,000 of them in the last 15-20 years), PRs (>500,000 of them today) and EPs (200,000)?

Many core Singaporeans have served NS and helped built the Singapore of today and by some estimates, more than 100,000 of born and bred locals are now displaced by new Singaporeans, PRs, EPs and SPs. 

Anonymous

Covid19 -Antigen Rapid Test versus Oximeter

 With more people returning to work, there is now a new requirement for workers that have not been vaccinated to perform Antigen Rapid Test (ART) twice a week to check for virus infection. Those vaccinated need not do this presumably they are less likely to be infected. How true is this assumption when on the ground the number of vaccinated and unvaccinated people being infected are just as many, if not more among the vaccinated than the unvaccinated. If this assumption is false, it is like the vaccinated would have a licence to spread the virus and the unvaccinated no such licence. The problem is that this fallacy can lead to complacency and misplaced faith in the vaccines, leading to more infections.

With the data of infection available, both the vaccinated and unvaccinated should also be tested. But this is going to be a very costly exercise both in time and money and wastage. Not everyone can afford the $10 per test ART, twice a week, and the time consuming ritual of testing and disposal of the used test kit.

Why not use the oximeter that we have been issued for this test? This is a much easier and efficient way of testing and can be conducted daily and many times a day at minimal cost and disruption. There will be no need to clear any used material as the oximeter can be used and reused for a long time. The ART kits would lead to a lot of waste to clear.

The advantages of oximeter testing over ART kits are many. As the infection can happen any time, not days in between ART test, daily test and repeated test over a day would be more efficient and effective. As both tests are just indicators and a good guide to the possibility of an infection, using oximeter would definitely be superior than ART test kits. The oxygen level is a good indicator of a person's condition. Maybe oximeter may not detect those asymptomatic cases, but it would be very cost efficient if hundreds of thousands or millions of tests are being conducted on a daily basis.

The MTF should look at the use of oximeters instead of the expensive and cumbersome ART test kits and the need to dispose all the waste material after used. It saves a lot of time and money and no need to worry for supply chain and shortage of supply.

What do you think? Anyone with a 97% oxygen level should be likely to be healthy and free from the virus. Maybe 90% or 95% would be equally good. The experts would know what is the best percentage to accept as a good indicator of being free from the virus.