Coronavirus: What could the West learn from Asia?

Coronavirus: What could the West learn from Asia? By Helier Cheung - BBC News 21 Mar 20

Below is a precis of an article by Helier Cheung that also appeared in Yahoo News.  While the clown President Trump and his evil men in Washington tried to shift the blame on China for their own failures and incompetence and clowning when China broke the news on 31 Dec 19 to WHO, they could have taken effective measures instead to prevent the spread of the virus to the USA. When this news was reported, there was hardly any cases in the USA. The virus could not have jumped to the USA overnight. The truth was that the virus was all over the USA and other countries but no one was testing them no one knew about them and allowed the virus to spread undetected and uncontrolled. So stop blaming China for your own incompetence and mischief.

Below is Helier Cheung's article in brief.

The number of coronavirus cases in the West is skyrocketing, and countries have announced drastic measures, including school closures and lockdowns.
The outbreak hit many countries in Asia several weeks earlier - and some have been praised for containing the number of infections. For example, Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan all kept case numbers relatively low - despite their proximity to mainland China.
What did they do differently - and are there any lessons for other countries?

Lesson 1: Take it seriously - and act quickly

"The UK and US lost an opportunity," says Tikki Pangestu, a former director of research policy at the World Health Organization (WHO). "They had two months from what happened in China, yet there was this perception that 'China is very far away and nothing's going to happen'."

Lesson 2: Make tests extensive, and affordable

Cases in South Korea spiked initially. However, it swiftly developed a test for the virus - and has now tested more than 290,000 people. It conducts about 10,000 tests daily for free.

Lesson 3: Trace and isolate
It's not enough to just test those with symptoms - tracing those with whom they were in contact has been key.
In Singapore, detectives have contact-traced more than 6,000 people - locating individuals with CCTV footage, testing them, and ordering them to self-isolate until their results are clear. In Hong Kong, contact tracing goes back to two days before someone develops symptoms.

Lesson 4: Early social distancing
Social distancing is considered one of the best ways of containing an outbreak.

Lesson 5: Keep the public well informed and on side
"Unless you get the co-operation of the public, your policies may not be adhered to, and enforcement only goes so far," says Prof Pangestu. "The important thing is to show that policies are based on scientific evidence."

Lesson 6: It's also down to individual attitudes
It's far too simplistic to say, as some have, that Asians are more likely to comply with government orders. In Hong Kong, public trust in the government is low - and there have been months of anti-government protests. But, in one of the densest cities in the world, many have voluntarily socially distanced themselves - with some even avoiding Lunar New Year gatherings, the equivalent of skipping Christmas events.

Heng ah, no crooked bridge

The mad rush at the Causeway just before the lockdown of Malaysia was a pathetic sight to behold. Ordinary citizens from both sides of the Causeway scrambling to get back to Singapore for a simple reason, to work and to put food on the table. The jams, the frustration were all worth it if they could get to Singapore in time, never mind the inconvenience, never mind having to lug their luggages and whatever, never mind if they have to walk across the Causeway on foot. It was a great relief for those that made it. For those who could not, Singapore was two weeks away if nothing changes or could be longer.

Many must be very grateful that the Causeway was there to allow them to walk over when the cars and buses could not be of much help. Walking across the Causeway was much faster and convenient than be caught in the massive jam and vehicles crawling at ant speed. Many must be saying thank God they did not have to climb the long and winding crooked bridge that was supposed to replace the Causeway. The height and steep gradient, and the length of the proposed crooked bridge were obstacles that made walking an impossibility even if they wanted to. The crooked bridge if built would be a cruel joke on a time like this when people needed to just walk across the straits.

With this harrowing experience, would anyone still think the crooked bridge was a good idea and would want to revive it when another joker comes to power? Is there something to learn from this difficult experience of the people that needed to cross the straits? Singapore side has a lot to learn on what it is like in an overcrowded island with 5.6m population and whether it is a foolish idea to make this bigger. The Malaysia side would have to ponder if the idea of a crooked bridge should be history, like the idea of a 6.9m population with some crazies saying 10m or 20m also can.

What do you think? Should the people from both sides of the Causeway heave a sigh of big relief that this Covid19 pandemic is a valuable lesson for the megalomaniacs not to push their luck too far. Things can get worse than this.

Covid19 - Trump needs more time/notice to cope with the virus? Complacency or stupidity?

The rest of the world was caught unaware. At least we had some kind of preparation in place, which is why Singapore was so quick to respond in RATIONAL ways.

To the rest of the unprepared world, this is a Black Swan because to them a pandemic was not even on their radar; a true Unknown unknown.

Luck, the human race is quick to learn and pick up the pace once a "real signal" of present danger is detected.

Trump has been criticised for dropping the ball. Not in my calculus. America is a fumbling, bumbling individualistic culture, but they also learn very quickly and have tremendous resources which they can afford to throw at the situation.  By Matilah Singapura


China reported the incident on 31 Dec 19 and followed up with the lockdown of Wuhan, Hubei. When these happened then, there were very few cases outside China.  With the lockdown, the virus in China would not have a chance to get out, and with the 0 new cases in Wuhan today, it shows how effective was the lockdown in Wuhan. Less than 3 months and China was able to contain the virus in China.

The Chinese lockdown gave the world an early warning and bought time for every country to prepare for this. Tedros, head of WHO had been saying this from the very start. But the Americans and the West took no heed. They were smarting at the plight of the Chinese and every day accusing China for starting this virus and lack of transparency. Clown number one, Donald Trump was giggling as if nothing happened and nothing to worry about. Everything was under control in the US and did nothing. Today he is blaming China for being slow in telling the world about the virus. How much time does he need to be called enough time?  This clown and his evil men were laughing and sneering at China's trouble without doing a thing other than making spiteful remarks about China.  See who will have the last laugh.

China isolated and identified this virus for the world to take notice. The virus was all over the world but went unnoticed because no one was testing for it, no one knew about it. There is no chance that this virus could escape from China to spread all over the world in such a short time. There could be a few cases but not all, not the majority of the countries were infected from virus coming from China.

The virus was already there in these countries, especially the USA and Europe. During the crisis in China the Americans and the West were so happy and doing the blame game, that the virus originated from China. Their situation was the same as many countries today that have very few cases. But the more they test the more they will discovere, because the virus is there. The only difference is that they did not know, they did not test.

This virus was prevalent in the USA with many deaths and misdiagnosed as common flu. The Americans have the virus in their stockpile. They used to threaten to use it on Saddam Hussein. Clown Trump and his evil men still stick to their position that the virus came from China and China did not give them enough notice to fight this virus. If you hear what is coming from the USA, they are totally unprepared, did not do anything during the grace period offered by China to do something. They are gravely short of equipment and trained medical stuff to handle this crisis. The same thing is also happening in Europe. It appears not to be serious in many poorer countries not because the virus is not there, but they are not testing, did not have the test kits to do the testing.

The virus is waiting to explode in the USA, in the face of Clown Trump and his evil men and to the American public at large. Stop hiding the fact that the virus originated from ground zero in the USA and blaming on China.

Read this from Yahoo News reported on  20 Mar 20.

The Republican head of the Senate Intelligence Committee dumped stocks and warned donors of a looming disaster in February even as the White House played down the coronavirus threat, US media reported Thursday.

Senator Richard Burr, who receives almost daily briefings from the US intelligence community on threats to the country, himself wrote on the Fox News website on February 7 that the US government was "better prepared than ever" for the COVID-19 virus, assuring Americans that they were well-protected.

But as President Donald Trump repeatedly said the virus would not hit the United States hard, on February 13 Burr and his wife suddenly sold off at least $582,000 and as much as $1.6 million in stocks, according to the ProPublica media group, citing financial filings.

And two weeks after that, on the same day Trump was telling the public that the 15 cases reported could be the US peak, the North Carolina senator told a private gathering of wealthy donors that coronavirus was a threat like the 1918 Spanish Flu, which killed tens of millions, according to National Public Radio.

NPR obtained a recording in which Burr told the donors that they should curtail their travel, 15 days before Trump shocked the country with a ban on arrivals from Europe.

"There's one thing that I can tell you about this: It is much more aggressive in its transmission than anything that we have seen in recent history," he said on the recording.

"It is probably more akin to the 1918 pandemic."

As the Senate Intelligence Committee chairman, Burr receives much of the same daily reporting on threats to the country that the White House gets, and so he would have been apprised of the government's internal predictions.

On February 26, the day before Burr met with donors, Trump assured the American public: "We're going very substantially down, not up" in the number of infected....

Covid19 - Why China, South Korea, Italy, Iran and Spain?

Top of the charts for having the more people infected by Covid19 are China, Italy, Iran, South Korea and Spain. What they have in common, enemies of the USA. There are obvious reasons to support this conspiracy theory. China needs no further explanation as it has been branded as the Number One Enemy of the USA for daring to upset the status quo dictated by the American Empire. How can any country challenge the USA as the most powerful, the richest, the biggest economy in the world, in fields of science and technology. China must be put down at all cost. The series of deadly diseases across China in continuation, nonstop, is a case in point. The trade war continues beyond just trade but sabotage and biological warfare to cripple the Chinese economy.

It is no surprise that China would have to be the first country to receive the first blow of Covid19 infection, right in the heart of China, in Wuhan, at a time when the Chinese were returning home to celebrate Chinese New Year Reunion with their families. There was no Chinese New Year celebration this year with many Chinese cities being lockdown and the whole nation mustered to fight this deadly and highly infectious disease.

The Americans were laughing haughtily and cockily and blaming the Chinese for starting and spreading this disease and lying to the world, not transparent, hiding the truth and whatever, even calling this the Wuhan Virus, the Chinese Virus, raising anger among the white racists to hate China and Chinese with people of Chinese origin or looking Chinese being attacked and beaten up in western countries. The evil and wicked Americans have succeeded in smearing and demonising China and Chinese. While the truth as to the origin of this dangerous virus is unfolding, and pointing to the Americans and their evil hands, other countries that the Americans were unhappy with also became target of this American Virus created from American Lab, Fort Detrick.

South Korea was the first outside China to be hit severely by this Covid19. It was the second worse affected country for several weeks in terms of number of infection and death. But why South Korea, isn't this the closest American ally in the East, a semi colony of the American Empire? Yes, but the South Koreans are getting too smart for their own good. They wanted to make peace with their Northern brothers, they wanted to get rid of American forces in their soil, they did not want to pay for 'American protection' to have American soldiers and weapons of war in their country. In other words they did not want to serve the interest of the American Empire and paying for it. Now this kind of smart thing is no good. They must be taught a lesson not to play with fire or undermine the interest of the American Empire.

The next severely affected country, you guess it, America's Enemy Number Two, Iran.  All the immediate neighbouring countries of China did not have Covid19 infection or with only a handful of cases. Why and how did the virus leapfrogged to South Korea and Iran, the latter more than a thousand miles away, bridging deserts and high mountain ranges? The virus is very clever and very selective, know where and how to fly to Iran to infect the Iranians. And the strain in Iran is even more deadly than the strain in Wuhan with higher mortality rate.

And from Iran it leapfrogged again to Italy. But why Italy, a Nato member and thus also an American ally? Italy committed the sin of going behind the backs of the Americans to be part of the BRI. Italy is the beach head of China's BRI project into Europe. The Americans tried very hard to twist the arms of the Italians to break off from the BRI project. But the Italians have a mind of their own and see the BRI as the best thing to happen to Italy's economy and future growth. They needed the BRI to boost their dying economy.

Now, how could the American Empire tolerate such defiance from a small European country? There you have it, Italy must pay the price for going against the American Empire. And the Covid19 conveniently sneaked into the heart of Italy's industrial region and the rest is history.

Spain has the same problem as Italy, or committed the same sin, to be part of the BRI. How could Spain be spared? No way, Spain too must be taught a lesson, to tear it away from BRI. There you are, Spain becomes the second most infected country in Europe after Italy.

The moral of the story, do not become an enemy of the evil American Empire. The Covid19 is just a biologicial weapon to inflict the pain on the people and to cripple the economies of those who dare to disobey the American Empire, to have a mind of their own, to want to break free. In fact the whole Europe is part of the collateral damage as Europe, the EU, is embarking on a new path, to break free from the American Empire, to chart its own destiny. This cannot be allowed to go on unchecked.

The Covid19 genie is let out of the bottle to do what it can do best, to protect the interest of the American Empire.

Do these make sense?

Can Singapore afford a 10m problem when 5m problem is threatening to tear it apart?

Yeoh Lam Keong Singapore’s preeminent economist was quoted in the Nikkei article explaining the PAP ideology as it applies to HDB pricing policy in the following terms:
“The roots of Singapore’s current problems, Yeoh believes, were planted in the 1990s, when its politics lurched rightward. In line with the prevailing neoliberal thinking, the government moved toward a more market-based approach to the pricing and ownership of HDB flats.”
What we have is a systemic failure and we need to recalibrate the balance between unbridled capitalism and the welfare state or socialism; between profits and people.
Our policy frameworks transfers control of economic factors from the private sector and individuals to the public sector creating the imbalance that need to be fixed.
The PAP Government is a prisoner of its own failed policies and unless we vote for a more compassionate Government in place instead of the PAP Government, things will get from bad to worse for the ordinary citizen.

Khush Chopra

The above is a quote from Khush Chopra's article in the TRE. I have highlighted a few points in bold for discussion here. There is a systemic failure and PAP govt is a prisoner of its own failed policies. The key factors in PAP's economic policy is growing the GDP at all cost so that more and more people can be paid in the millions with many doing sweet fuck all and do not deserve the millions being paid to them. It is not easy to justify paying someone in the private sector a million dollar, and it is very dangerous to use public money to pay millions to politicians and civil servants and people working in GLCs. What are the values and contributions of the recipients to make them deserving of a million dollar pay? There are several thousand people being paid a million or more in govt, ministries, stats boards and GLCs. This million dollar pay policy is a big burden on the tax payers, on the budget and finance of the country. The money must come from somewhere and the amount is ballooning annually with more and more million dollar recipients being created.

This leads to the dogged policy of growing the economy at all cost and when all things failed, just pump in more headcounts, more levies and taxes and consumption from foreigners. The 6.9m is only a red herring, 10m is also another red herring. The truth is that this growing the GDP at all cost means that the population must keep growing, keep blowing the balloon, it cannot be stopped or the whole economy and system of million dollar salary will collapse.

The Covid19 pandemic has exposed the vulnerability of Singapore in having a huge population. There is a big issue of food, water, the basic needs that must be provided to a huge population. We can see how treacherous things can be even with 5.6m population. If this Covid19 problem drags on for 6 months or more,  we could be facing serious difficulties to keep the people fed and without jobs, especially the foreigners. All would have to be asked to go home.

For the moment we can count ourselves lucky as the foreigners are not Singapore citizens and could be asked to leave, though the problem is not so simple if they refuse to do so. We would not have the luxury of asking them to leave if they are converted to citizens when we have 6.9m, 10m or more people here.

Can Singapore afford a 10m or 6.9m problem? In a major international crisis, we are not going to get the food we need, the water we need to feed so many mouths. Yes, this is a systemic failure, failed economic policy based on unrestrained growth. No growth means the bursting of the bubble. Continue to push for growth at all cost only kick the can down the road a little further but for how long before the inevitable big bang?

Would there be a rethink on this failed economic policy? Would the PAP govt be able to extricate itself from being the prisoner of this high growth, million dollar salary formula before it is too late?

Singapore needs to seriously relook at the premises and assumption for a sustainable population without risking a total collapse in the future. There will be many problems ahead that would be far more serious than what we are seeing today, a small piece of rock without natural resources and trying to live beyond its severe physical limitations. It is like a case of going for brokes.

Covid19 - White man spreading his virus

I am not sure where and when this was taken, but it is good enough to see what this white man was doing on the train. It was a deliberate act of mischief.  I received this from Ming.

Watch the video of how the US soldier smear the train pole with his saliva from his mouth on a Wuhan train

Captured on a surveillance camera on a Wuhan, China train

Original message received in the Chinese

这个美国大兵，在军运会期间，己经带上了口罩。开始坐地铁传播疫情病毒了。

武汉市的监控摄像头都有美国大兵的行程路线图与当时的视频记录……，大数据是不会说慌的。

可怜的武汉市民，就是这样被无情的疫情病毒所感染上身。

要认真看看那个手的动，从嘴巴再到扶手，就知道了美国人的罪恶、邪恶之毒心。

Translation

The American soldier had put on a mask during the military games. Began to spread the epidemic virus by subway.

The surveillance cameras in Wuhan have a road map of the US soldiers and video records at the time ... Big data is not a panic.

Poor Wuhan citizens are infected with the ruthless epidemic virus.

If you look at the movement of that hand carefully, from the mouth to the armrest, you will know the evil and evil heart of Americans.

Other resources

US CDC Director Robert Redfield Admitted that Coronavirus Deaths Have Been Miscategorized as Flu - Global Research

Covid19 - Desperation can lead to recklessness. Protect the heartlanders

The lockdown of Malaysia raises the problem of Malaysian workers working in Singapore, commuting daily for decades as a natural order of things that is not natural after all. The lockdown means many businesses would not have their workers to do whatever they are supposed to do. The businesses are desperate, and the govt too is also desperate. No business means no taxes, work not done, contracts not fulfilled, jobs not done, undone, material wastage, machine downtime, redundancies etc etc all leads to losses. The companies cannot afford it, the workers too cannot afford it if they could not get to work.

Now the crisis is how to house these workers in Singapore to bypass the lockdown? Every stone would not be left unturn to find accommodation for these transient workers, could be temporary, but not sure how long. What is frightening is to allow them to invade the heartland, the sacred sanctuary of the Singaporeans, a place that they called home, a place they can feel safe and secured, whether at work or returning home to rest and to be with their families.

There have been many cases of reckless and irresponsible flat owners renting the flats to hordes of sex starved wildlife, men with a lot of hormones to release and living next doors to small Singaporean families, young families, young wives, young daughters without thinking of the safety of these female folks. Even the oldies, the retired and living alone can be quite scary with so many young wildlife, some looking so hostile and wild as their neighbours. The worse hours are working hours when the manfolks are at work. Even if they are home, the tiny weeny specky manfolks are no deterrence to these wildlife.

While everyone is desperate to find lodging for the Malaysian workers, and foreign workers, please be mindful that the safety and security of Singaporean families must not be compromised for their convenience. The HDB heartland is sacred, the safe sanctuary of average Singaporeans. Their homes must not be violated and invaded by strangers and wildlife, especially hungry sex starved men from all over the world, people whose backgrounds are unknown.

How could Singaporeans, especially young couples at work feel safe, not worried when they are not at home and their neighbours are wildlife from God knows where? How can oldies feel safe even at home when their neighbours are burly wildlife that could throw them out of the balcony or gatecrash into their homes? How would the womenfolks and young girls and children feel when being stared at by wild and aggressive men when they move to and from their homes? Why should Singaporeans be made to live in fear, with wildlife as their neighbours?

Be considerate, be mindful, be responsible to the Singaporeans in whatever actions you take, whatever policies you make for short term economic gains that may harm the Singaporeans in their homes, in the heartland.

Do not dump wildlife into the heartland.
Do not violate the homes and neighourhoods of the average Singaporeans.
Do not upset the social balance and tranquility of the heartland.
Do not endanger the safety and security of the heartlanders.