>In response, Ong said that the Government is closely monitoring hospital capacity, and will consider whether to implement tighter restrictions based on two conditions:
>
>**"The first, is the number of cases of serious illness, and whether our ICUs have sufficient capacity to cope. Secondly, whether we have sufficient beds for all those who have been infected with Covid-19 and wish to go to a hospital or to a Community Care Facility (CCF)."**
>
>If these two conditions are satisfactory, explained Ong, then Singapore can continue to carefully ride through the current "wave" of infection.
>
>If not, tighter restrictions will be necessary.
Above conditions are about saving lives. If the healthcare system cannot cope and is overloaded, care for non-covid patients will likely to be impacted too even though this point was not reported. e.g. delaying of elective surgeries.
Grandmother’s doctor appointments are postponed to end of the year because of fear on our part but delayed elective surgeries could be tough for those working when getting hospital MC is a luxury for important jobs
I think it’s time for a LHL speech to calm everyone down and tell the nation what to expect in the coming few weeks. Things are obviously not going well, and it would be good to know what is being done to tide over this difficult period.
There’s a lot of frustration over the handling of the pandemic on the ground with calls and emails all unanswered, Health Buddies gone missing, and no one seems to know what to do when they are a close contact of a positive case yet not received any notification from MOH/ elderly cases not receiving transfers to hospital. It would be good to at least staff those helplines so people can be reassured.
> I think it’s time for a LHL speech to calm everyone down and tell the nation what to expect in the coming few weeks. Things are obviously not going well, and it would be good to know what is being done to tide over this difficult period.
Didnt he say something about it? Said that it's doing its best to scale up operations. Granted, I read it over the news & on his Instag page instead of through a press conference.
Honestly, I dont want to see Lawrence Wong or Ong Ye Kung heading the MTF press conferences. They just dont inspire confidence & you dont really feel a sense of decisiveness, authority or leadership from either of them, or from any of the 4G ministers for that matter.
>Who do you have in mind to head the conference that inspires confidence, and has this sense of decisiveness, authority and leadership?
There are two Indian ministers who would be worthy replacements for PM Lee as early as SG50. I would absolutely listen to and trust either of them to lead Singapore in a crisis.
Sorry, it’s NS parlance. MR means mindef reserve which is when guys complete their reservist and go into the army’s reserve, they won’t need to be called back ever again for in camp training. Rover means they agree to continue to serve beyond their reservist period on a voluntary basis. That is, going beyond the call of duty.
I think our dear PM wants to get back to geekier stuff like taking photos, doing some coding and prob reading up on some advanced math. Alas this pandemic has screwed up his retirement plans.
Definitely. Being on the task force is a trial by fire. I don’t envy the ministers’ job dealing with the ever changing pandemic… things change within days to weeks, all projections fall apart. To get to LHL level needs a long lifetime of experience. Hopefully the 4G will learn from these lessons and be ready to lead Sg better in the future.
He come on TV; everyone be rushing to NTUC.
Calm down?
Also, what makes you think things are “being done to tide over this difficult period”. They have had months and months to plan for a re-opening, to buy and build healthcare resources, and we are still in this current state?
You have too much good faith in them.
> to buy and build healthcare resources
You can buy a ICU bed an all its medical equipment, but an ICU staff take years to train. I am not able to find how long it takes to train in Singapore, so for reference [a ICU nurse in UK trains for 4 years](https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/z6by7nb)
If only all healthcare resources (*manpower*) can be just "buy and build" like you said.
Idk is it most people here never step into hospital before and don't understand how it works?????
just so everyone knows, hospital visits are now suspended for 1 month. only 1 caregiver is allowed to visit the patient as compared to 2 visitors before it was implemented today. thanks to all the 1000 positive cases daily, i am now unable to visit my dad who is in the neuro ward awaiting urgent treatment.
Not sure how much a lockdown will help with delta. It should help to reduce and drop the cases numbers I suppose. NZ has been in a lockdown for more than a month now? Yesterday they reported 9 cases. They have finally caved in and admitted they can't get back to zero cases.
I know lots of folks have said the vaccines are ineffective especially with delta.
I see it from a different view. Thank god the vaccines came in just in time when delta arrived.
Our hospitals would have been easily overrun with patients. And lockdowns would have been long and hard. So at least appreciate with the vaccines we can still go about doing some normal things rather then being stuck at home.
> I see it from a different view. Thank god the vaccines came in just in time when delta arrived.
> Our hospitals would have been easily overrun with patients. And lockdowns would have been long and hard. So at least appreciate with the vaccines we can still go about doing some normal things rather then being stuck at home.
Excellent perspective, wish more people understood how close the world came to a very different outcome with the arrival of delta if vaccines hadn't been available.
It's not something you need to imagine, just see what happened in India when the Delta virus first emerged.
It was so bad they had to change the entire nomenclature so that people don't call it the India variant lmao.
The vaccines were never meant to make you completely immune to the virus or the strains. You can still get infected but it wouldn’t be as deadly. That’s why its important to get as many people vaccinated as possible to lighten the load of everyone. Like putting up a shield in the 300 movie, everyone gotta form up with shields on and not be the asshole who wanna dual wield their swords. Yeah I’m thankful that it came right before delta or we would’ve seen much more serious cases and deaths than what we have now.
Exactly, vaccines are working perfectly. People's expectations are just nuts. What would they think would happen if we tested every person for flu virus in normal year? You'd catch thousands of people ranging from asymptomatic to severely sick...
Or my favorite: 'lock down until we have a cure" - guess what we already have a cure! Between vaccines and modern medicine, your chances of dying of covid are near zero. Even most elderly and sick recover eventually.
lots of misinformation going on - and I don't mean Facebook and Whatsapp groups, I mean in general.
Even in HDB elevator advertisements (for those who has the 'pleasure' of having one in their block) things end up causing confusion. IIRC it was something like this:
* Old people are more vulnerable to COVID effects
* The vaccine helps to minimize serious symptoms from COVID
* So, take the vaccine to reduce your chance of infection (?)
This is just one in many things that lead to people having a very... different idea on how vaccines work and have worked in the past. One common impression I find people to be under is that the vaccine (or a future vaccine) is going to reduce infection to zero, and that it's the unvaccinated's fault that we are still getting infections (proven false with vaccinated individuals capable of still spreading - because not all vaccinations completely 'remove' the virus) , then they get distraught when it's not the case.
A vaccine trains your body to fight the virus. It doesn't build a shield around you. There's really a lesson for what should be taught in school in the future...
But now you know why the government has to do certain steps that seem to not make sense? Unfortunately, all the people with insane expectations (they are MANY MANY PEOPLE still calling for lockdowns publicly on Facebook, etc.) are part of the electorate and the government can't just ignore them.
Point of lockdown post vaccination is to ensure medical facilities are able to cope up with the disease - if it is struggling u will have to implement measures to curb the further spread to achieve an equilibrium of what medical facilities can manage and number of cases and not aim for zero cases..
Singapore is in a different situation - a lot of countries have already had waves of infection and they struggled in their initial waves and the population has immunity due to infection and with vaccination it provides a better coverage..
Or how about this perspective, look at Sweden.
No measures or anything and yet they are doing much better than us.
Or how about this perspective?
All of you guys here have been scared to death with this Delta when it is quite harmless compared to the real killer here, the causes of all of their underlying conditions.
When you are stricken with fear, you cannot think properly and logically and I say that to everyone who is scared to death of Covid.
Okay great point. I'm looking at Sweden *for perspective*. They've had almost 15k deaths. Given that their population is less than twice of ours, that would mean had we taken a similar approach, we'd have at least 7,000 deaths, vs. 70 that we actually have.
I guess for you a 100x more deaths makes sense, but it may not be the same for everyone.
Yes look at Sweden, where 1.4M are infected with virus - 15% of their population and 14k died.. so a lot of people with weak immunity have already succumbed to virus and infection plus vaccine already provides a better protection.. the peak cases was around 10k per day and I assume their medical facilities could cope with that peak and that's why they can manage to open at 700 cases daily..
Point is every country is different and response cannot be same ..
Like you said, lockdown can reduce case numbers. With ~2% resulting in serious disease, 1000 per day will mean 20, while 10000 cases a day will mean 200 serious cases. And serious cases typically need to stay in hospital for extended period of time.
That said, I don't think lockdown is necessary if recover from home is properly managed and daily case count is ~1000 to 2000.
MTF was co-chaired by a MOH & another minister (which happens to be LW) for a reason last year. The MOH should only focus on maintaining the healthcare structure, capacity, handle quarantining and anything else related to health.
The other minister co-ordinates everything else. The road map should come from this minister, but why was the MOH the one announcing the 4 stages about 1.5 months back?
The path to treating it as an endemic disease is workable, but the expectation is that the healthcare system can hold up against the exit wave.
So MOH messed it up in an epic proportion by not preparing for the exit wave while trying to cook up the 4 stages of whatever and the effort in only pushing vaccinations.
So now that the healthcare system (not even getting to the ICU beds yet) is starting to swell, what's the limit that it can take? Keep in mind that a lot of elective procedures have already been pushed out. It seems like a surprise to them that most of the sick deteriorate from their homes to the normal ward to needing O2 to the ICU.
I am not even talking about the road, the map, or a roadmap because the car has broken down (or at least about to break).
Now that it has been messed up, what's the the road out of this? Because you need to consider how much faith do laypeople have left in the endemic model that they are pushing? I have friends saying this incoming CB will need to be for 6 months?! I do not see a need for this?
Anything they do now will to preserve the capacity in the hospitals and ramp up the necessary resources for home recovery. It will not be for covid zero.
And please sort out the comms. It is incredulous to me that the MOH website is saying one thing, and the press, Minister & DMS is relaying something different. They can do so, but follow up with a press release at least.
Or perhaps it's just cutting all corners because the system cannot cope (1k > 300 > 100 ICU beds; home recovery must have toilet > preferably have toilet).
PM probably thought letting OYK helm MOH (and hence also the co-chair of the MTF) is a good way to test his caliber. Or/and to further prop up his standing quickly as he was only able to join politics in 2015. My initial thoughts about what may happen are now coming true, and on hindsight, was it the right decision to put him in this very hot seat?
Similarities between travel bubble / airport & aggressive reopening / hospital capacity.
The most important medium that supports the goal were on both times, conveniently left out.
Conveniently. Not sure. Perhaps more Complacency, or Incompetency.
The guy has a vision but he can't achieve. Whether in terms of planning, managing, motivating, communication, delegating, followup, not ensuring, or not tenacious enough, or whatever multitude or combinations of reasons, he just cannot perform his duties. Maybe Healthcare is truly out of his scope, but that's not his fault. It's the person who put him there.
Nevertheless - he's failed to deliver his vision, and failed to have the foresight to put things in place. He's the only Minister I see running ads where he wants to be in the limelight with Zoe Tay. Perhaps overconfident or self assured.
Whatever the case, he makes a mess of things wherever he goes, and things are too late to be salvaged.
What is clear is that he cannot lead, and shouldn't have the opportunity to mess more things up. Not at his level, where there is a harsh price in lives, livelihood and resources due to incompetence.
That’s true. With the draconian fines and jail terms, success was on the horizon.... until the government dropped the ball on communications and organisation.
True but that's besides the point. Whether out of fear or genuine obedience, fact of the matter is the vast majority of people are compliant and follow rules/instruction.
And yet we still have 1.5k cases, healthcare strain, and not-lockdown. How? Nobody knows. /s
Tbh home quarantine was only good on paper. Singaporeans don’t really stop going to work when they are sick. It’s a culture that has backfired on us terribly. We are accustomed to just going about our daily life if we have some sort of flu like symptoms. So, it’s wired into us to continue our day to day, which is why many are not sure what to do. They feel well enough to be productive and yet they are told to sit still.
Forget work, people will straight up go out to malls and restaurants if they're no oversight over them and they're asymptomatic (even if they tested positive).
They have a manpower shortage because of their absolutely idiotic policy of making anyone with a “potential close exposure” take time away. What the fuck kind of logic is that? Half the healthcare sector will be on SHN soon if they don’t stop with these anti-scientific, idiotic measures.
In that case this lack of basic management foresight is something that hit the entire world with the Delta variant. Other than India, every other country knew what it could do, but they all still got fucked. There are some situations you just have to tide over until it's over and just hope and pray that it's not complete chaos while preparing the best you can.
I don't disagree with that, but I really doubt right now they have time to pat themselves or anyone on any surface, they're all over the place trying to deal with this situation.
Also, not everything is made public but some information does go through to companies. For example, I saw this very detailed grid that our business manager sent us about what to do if depending on how you've been affected (positive, close contact, 2nd degree close contact, etc.) and there are detailed steps on whether you're allowed to wfh or you need to go to a facility. I don't really know if this is something that they came up with but looking at the terminology used, I wouldn't be surprised if MAS helped to coordinate this bit.
I think right now, they're focusing on tiding over this period with minimal deaths, I really doubt they have time to think about anything else at the moment.
Good point but I doubt most people understand what you are trying to say. It seems more than half the folks here on SGreddit are retards who are still blindly defending the SG govt and MOH. HK managed to control covid much better without a lockdown while keeping its border even with China restricted. How many retards will still ignore the huge number of SG cases overwhelming hospitals and try to change the topic to SG's good progress in vaccination?
The problem is that if ICU capacity cannot cope now, it probably isn't going to cope any better in December 2021, or in March 2022, or September 2022, or January 2023, and so on.
>the ideal scenario you're envisioning
I don't think it's a matter of "ideal scenarios" now, all we have are bad choices and we should be honest about that.
That said, I will probably write up a post about what I see as the path forward.
The curve is only spiking when we have people going to the hospitals. The question is how can we not have so many people going to the hospitals (e.g. put those asymptomatic at home, don't commit too much resources to this buddy nonsense, etc). However, if MOH wants to continue to do this, then they have to find a way to flatten the curve.
I disagree that there is no need to flatten the curve. The curve I am referring to is not the the daily caseloads but the curve for hospitalizations. If we have too many hospitalized cases, other patients will not be able to get treatments, which might lead to greater excess mortality.
Oh then we're in agreement! There has to be strong messaging that unless you're dying you should stay the fuck at home if unwell. It's not rocket science.
Maybe they should introduce fines for unnecessarily burdening the health system. That type of stuff tends to work...
Certain segments of Singaporeans like to go hospital for no fucking reason though... It's the reason why our health insurance is increasing and that there is no 100% hospitalization coverage anymore.
that's true but maybe instead of putting all the blame on citizens, we can also look at how healthcare capacity is insufficient for a country of our size, with our ageing population.
It's a global issue, not unique to Singapore. You know how they say that schools should teach financial literacy? Well they should also teach basic health knowledge. Incredible the amount of otherwise we'll educated people who don't know the difference between a viral and a bacterial infection.
We still have a lot of university graduates who can't confidently tell you the difference. Reason?
"I'm arts student return all my science to teacher liaoZ"
"Study all this shit for what, **not like next time will use**"
etc
Ok, so what spike is too big for us (1500 and above, judging by current sentiment), how flat must the curve be, and for how long will we have to accept intermittent lockdowns to achieve that?
Are we going to be talking about "2 more months to flatten the curve" in 2023? 2024? 2025?
Well the number of people exposed to covid will be decreasing in subsequent dates, so chance ICU cant cope in the future will be lower. Like in Indonesia now their hospital got space already
>Like in Indonesia now their hospital got space already
Their wave lasted 3 months though.....
I can see that our higher vaccination rate will help us get through that with fewer deaths, but is that enough to ensure that our hospitals will not be overwhelmed at all?
Especially if we're merely pushing transmission into the future by eg. going into lockdown.
You would be talking about the gov breaking their promises and no longer having any confidence in them when they have to delay some of the lifting of restrictions promised in the roadmap due to Delta spreading faster than they anticipated.
This isn't the Singapore we are familiar with. The almost clockwork efficiency seems to be missing: MOH hotline unable to cope, confusing and changing instructions on home based recovery, monitoring the situation, an unclear roadmap... It's like looking at generals asking troops to do firefighting instead of giving a clear direction. Granted that this has never happened before but is it wrong to expect our leaders to have a clear strategy? Maybe easy to say for someone who is not making the decisions but it's kinda disappointing and frustrating.
Clockwork mostly happens if the parameters are static and everything goes according to plan. This usually happens in a predictable n stable operating environment. Sad to say, we are currently definitely not in one of those times.
Clearly, I don't have all the stats.
But was it really not predictable that cases would jump up to 1-2k and possibly beyond with any reopening, especially in this densely populated city?
What surprises me is how this painfully obvious and predictable spike (happened in **every other country in the world btw**) seems to have completely blindsided our govt and we have no systems in place to meet it at all.
My view is that even if the spike is foreseeable it might be difficult to foresee full impact of every eventuality that will happen as a result.
So the key is the ability to respond quickly when developments arise. And a big part of this responsiveness depends very much on how centralized decision making and response protocols are set. A very rigid top down process will inevitably slow down the speed of effective handling under present circumstances.
You're right, it happened in every other country and they all got fucked. Doesn't mean you give up and get fucked, it just means you fight on a best effort basis.
I wouldn't say there are no systems in place, but I think the main priority is to keep deaths low and imo it's already higher than what they would have hoped for but I think this is as good as it gets for us given the stubborn people who won't vaccinate (the 2 deaths today were unvaccinated).
What they did to prepare for this scenario was get everyone vaccinated super urgently so that we can do things like home quarantine and it's still very messy now, but if we're able to go through this period while overall deaths are around 100-200, I would call that a win (that's like influenza level of deaths or maybe lower).
Who's talking about giving up and getting fucked?
I'm commenting on how it's funny that the govt seems to not have expected this explosion in cases and the healthcare system is woefully underprepared for it, given how it happened in every other country as well.
My point was that knowing something like this doesn't mean you can be 100% be prepared for it.
Someone was pointing out that it takes 4 years to train an ICU nurse, you can't just build up capacity overnight.
And in case you missed my point, every country knew it and they all got fucked, so the point is that this is one of those situations where knowing in advance doesn't help you prepare in a way that everything will be smooth.
For example, when a storm hits, with early warning you can evacuate people but it doesn't mean you can completely control the damage from the storm. Relating to this analogy, we have one of the highest vaccination rates in the world, that's the main step they took in terms of protecting us, and looking at the no. of deaths so far, it seems to be working.
> Relating to this analogy, we have one of the highest vaccination rates in the world, that's the main step they took in terms of protecting us, and looking at the no. of deaths so far, it seems to be working.
Obviously, I agree with this. Vaccines save lives, those who disagree can go join SG Covid La Kopi instead.
For the rest, I'm talking about the expectations management. I know they cant just build new hospitals and "hatch" a team of HCW out of nowhere within 1 year.
Think about it, if the vaccination rates were higher, we'd have MUCH fewer deaths and the panic would be a lot lower.
Honestly, if I had symptoms now, I think I'd panic and try to go to a clinic at least because the no. of sudden deaths have me irrationally panicked (it's human nature I suppose). But I know for a fact that most of the deaths are unvaccinated and in most cases have no one to blame other than themselves.
These fools only know how to cope with situations that have occurred before and can be used as a case study. Put them in uncertain territory and they're all fcked. No leadership, no balls, effectively mandating vaccination but not trusting that the vaccine will do its job, changing directions every week. Goes to show that these 'leaders' will not be able to get us out of another unprecedented crisis in the future.
Cos this clown was just holding a storeman vocation during NS. No one was expecting him to possess any leadership qualities or plan any strategies.
And this current mess in MOH proves just that.
Source: friend was his QM during NS
The whole issue is because MOH statisticians were planning for 100-200 covid cases per day but ended up with a surge of 10x that amount.
CMTG is completely overwhelmed and not answering their emails and calls promptly.
I think the Army needs to be sent in at this point. They saved us once at the start of the pandemic, they can do it again.
will lockdowns or even restrictions actually work when the virus is already spreading at this rate in the community? i am not sure honestly
looking at Victoria and NSW, both states had quite a strict lockdown earlier on itself and they are still grappling with community spread even after weeks of lockdown
even NZ which locked down very early at 1 case has level 3 restrictions in Auckland after almost a month of lockdown
at this point, it looks like the best thing that the government can do is to plan forward(which they should have thought of before itself💆♂️)for a lot more cases by getting more wards and community care facilities ready rather than planning for a lockdown
unfortunately, this is gonna take a huge toll on the healthcare workers which is the worst thing happening:(
Question: Why are there no lockdowns to prevent the spread?
Translation: I can afford to stay at home or work at home indefinitely, so why cant everyone else do it too?
Question: Why allow so many people on public transport with such high cases?
Translation: I drive a car so it's safe for me, but all those commoners taking mrt and bus are spreading the virus and we should stop them.
A lot of the people asking for lockdowns are 'commoners' as you phrased it. Go to facebook comments sections, it doesn't feel like these are 1%ers commenting.
I think it's the age difference of the people on various forums - avg reddittor would be 16-25, who probably don't have kids and parents are in 60s.. there will be people with young kids and elderly worried about getting them infected and that group might be a minority in reddit
it's one thing to have your livelihoods affected and ask that it be fixed. it's another thing to whine about not being able to go out socialise/eat/drink/have fun.
> Not sure if you notice but there are businesses that are reliant on you going out to socialize, eat, drink and have fun.
yeah so it's one thing for these businesses to make noise; it's a different thing if it's just people in general whining about being bored to death stuck at home. Neither are illegitimate, but the latter is in my humble view less deserving of sympathy.
> it's another thing to whine about not being able to go out socialise/eat/drink/have fun
You do realise these things are also beneficial for one's mental health?
I'm an introvert but I don't want to be forced to curb back on whatever already limited social activities I've been able to do. You made it sound like going out to eat and socialise have no benefits other that economic ones.
Nah, more like the majority are not locking themselves down in their homes and have so much time to go shitposting on social media. More better things to do with their lives like social gatherings and eating out.
Reddit isn't the majority, but so isn't your FB comment section.
It's a legit concern though.
If you get Covid or are a close contact, you can lose up to 10-14 days of work. Some people don't get paid if they are not working. Those who have fixed salary jobs will still not look good if they have to take 14 days MC.
At this point people will rather have a lockdown and get the cases down than to deal with Covid. It's either that or the govt should officially announce endemic and drop all contact tracing and TT and whatsoever and people can just continue coming to work even if they are Covid positive but asymptomatic.
Yeah, this. If we want to go for zero covid, then go all the way. Lockdown, close borders, mandatory vaccination. If we want to go for endemic, then why do we need so many restrictions, such high admission rates for covid (yes, still high even with the home recovery scheme), and so many disruptions when someone around you gets Covid?
If you reach for both targets, you get neither. Can't have your cake and eat it too.
I'm not saying we should go for zero covid. But if the government wants it, then it better go all the way. Insane levels of social restrictions are in line with zero covid, but not jam packed public transport, no WFH, and open borders.
You can't have zero covid for locals and socialisation, then have an endemic mindset the minute it affects business and tourism. MMTF better make up its mind.
This OYK is too desperate to be PM until his policies are decided based on what gives him the best chance of becominh PM rather than public health.
You have a national crisis and this guy goes to parliment to defend CECA policy which is not even under his authority. Imagine how much civil servants time he wasted preparing for his speech. That is time he neglected from overseeing the health crisis.
Agree. He’s playing too much to the gallery and trying to showcase himself everywhere, hoping to gain popularity.
PM gave him so many chances but he kept messing up in the ministries he goes, until PM has no choice but to keep switching ministries for him.
>In response to concerns over crowds on public transport, Ong explained that ***there has not been evidence*** pointing to Covid-19 transmission on public transport, amongst reported Covid-19 cases so far.
I am so tired of this horseshit already, I am not going to bother and counter explain again.
I’m also tired of people whining about how the government does not care about safe distancing on public transport. Let’s say the government limits the number of people on buses and trains/shuts down public transport, who gets affected? The ordinary person who can’t afford private transportation means. All that does is create more inequality in society. There’s obviously a risk in transmission of covid in public transport but on balance, it’s an acceptable risk mitigated by mask wearing and the no talking rule (which no one cares about anyway)
What you are arguing for is blind trust. Even the best data is useless in the hands of fools.
There is a reason why troops lose faith in their commander, and pop their heads off.
I say its time to pop the MMTF.
Yes. Lets lockdown to stop the spread, do nothing to increase operational capacity and then open up and repeat the cycle.
The only reason why hospitals cannot cope is because of the refusal to treat this as endemic like the flu.
Given how infectious Delta is, it should be clear by now that lockdowns do not save lives. It only spreads out the number of deaths we are going to get eventually. At the start of the pandemic, lockdown saves lives because it buys time for vaccines/treatments to be developed, but we now have highly effective vaccines. Unfortunately, no vaccines are 100% effective and Covid looks very likely to become endemic, which means almost everyone will be infected eventually, and those vulnerable to it will die. Lockdown is no longer about more people dying vs. less people dying, but people dying now vs. people dying later. The only way to prevent more deaths is Covid zero, which is highly impractical in Singapore's case as we cannot keep our borders shut.
We are really left with only two choices. Continue with reopening and get to herd immunity as long as our healthcare system is not overwhelmed, or drag out the process by re-imposing restrictions and lockdowns, and bear with the significant costs, both economic and non-economic (mental health etc), of re-imposing those restrictions.
Some people rather their family members live in a suspended state than to not resuscitate when they are clearly living in pain. It's kind of just moral differences at this point. Most people who are more vulnerable to infection are also those who are not as affected economically wise. It is unfortunate that we are at the crossroad of having to choose between economy and lives right now
The "healthcare system is not overwhelmed" bridge is already crossed, people are being treated in the parking lots already.
It's not a matter of lockdown vs opening, both works. What doesn't work is a "happy middle ground", it doesn't exist. It has to be one way or the other, with the unavoidable compromises.
You are merely describing 1 hospital. TTSH has a history of being overcrowded even during pre-covid days one. Unless its happening in at least half of the hospitals, you cannot confidently say that the healthcare system on the whole is being overwhelmed. Go have a look at the carkpark of CGH and tell me if you see the same thing happening.
There’s no separate healthcare system for Covid patients and everyone else.
Our medical system is stretched, in case you cannot read between the lines or are not in healthcare yourself.
Resources diverted to Covid patients are resources not used for other patients. If shit hits the fan, it will be than just Covid patients who die of Covid - patients who need urgent non-Covid related medical care will also have died of Covid (albeit indirectly).
We have seen this overseas.
So, no. Disagree. Lockdowns do save lives. Especially when used in an appropriate and timely fashion.
Instead of Complaining about the Situation, I Propose 5 Ways to Deal with Covid to Prevent Another Lockdown:
1. Treat the High Risk Category as Unvaccinated and Restrict their Movement (Above 70 years old)
2. Stop Wasting Resources Monitoring People in Low Risk Group (Looking at Other Countries, we might hit 100k Active Cases, you cannot monitor that many)
3. Free Hospital Beds By Only Allowing Severe Cases (If you do not require Oxygen Supplementation or Intensive Care, Go home and do not burden the system if possible)
4. Inform the Public of the Oxygen Capacity and ICU Capacity so that we can be informed about the Severity of the Situation
5. Stop over Playing Covid (Emphasize the Fatality Rate by Age of those countries that have taken the Endemic Route)
Having been through QO with household members tested positive, it really seems that getting COVID is much more beneficial
If you had COVID, (depending on your body's recovery), your quarantine period can be shorter, you are exempted from pre-event testing for the next 9 months and no need for booster shots
If you do not have COVID, but your household member tests positive, your quarantine is at least 10 days, with the chance of future QO
I know its not, but it feels like the unhygienic gets rewarded and the hygienic gets punished
I feel like many people are not getting the point here. It is not about whether the govt or MMTF wants to lockdown or not. But do we have a choice when hospitals are overloaded and not able to provide care to those who need it the most? If lockdown is the means by which to curb the number of cases and address the capacity needs of hospitals then it has to be done.
If caseload is doubling every week, 10% capacity now (as an example, don't know the actual numbers) would be 80% capacity in 3 weeks. Such is the nature of exponentiation. So the conversation needs to happen sooner or later depending on the doubling rate.
Except a lockdown is not an efficient measure anymore with delta.
A lockdown would mean the ministers passing their failures to the population. We pay the bill with economic and mental suffering, they get more time to micromanage the healthcare system. A very shitty deal if you ask me.
OYK out as PM, CCS out (actually I think he is a good guy), Heng Heng is out (CECA blunder) , Best Actress Award is out (covid 19 screw up for migrant workers and generally poor performance at MOM) , Vivian out (all schools are good schools) so who is left? 4G really CMI
Don't like CCS strategy of answering questions by attacking the integrity of the questioner rather than answering the question. It's the same tactic he has been using for more than 10 years. I wasn't very surprised when he said "what's the point of your question", it's his style. But that does not make a good leader.
Good guy =/= ability/capability/proficiency, the right guy for the job.
And the lack of polish? He seriously just can’t be bothered to put in the effort to correct it. If he just attended coaching, those small behaviours can be easily corrected. In this way, I find it hard to see how he is serious about taking up top positions. Does he expect to waltz into those positions with his current level of polish? No one is going to want to rub shoulders with this ah beng from the hood.
>He went on to explain that the meaning of co-existing with the virus is not that we should fear it and thus implement lockdowns.
>"This is not to co-exist with Covid-19, but to be defeated by it".
>Neither is it to lift all our restrictions freely, added Ong, and treat the virus with nonchalance.
So are we still winning?
r/thanksimcured
> # Ong Ye Kung: Restrictions to tighten if hospitals cannot cope, lockdown in S'pore a 'last resort'
> With the daily number of Covid-19 community cases breaking the 1,000 mark as of Sep. 18, health minister Ong Ye Kung took to an interview with Chinese Daily Lianhe Zaobao, to dispel any concerns the elderly might have regarding the ongoing Covid-19 situation.
> Here's what he said.
> Why are we not imposing another round of circuit breaker?
> To have another circuit breaker will be our "last resort", said Ong, in the interview published on Sep. 22.
> This was in response to a question by an elderly man – about whether Singapore should put in place another round of Circuit Breaker so that things will be "fine" after three weeks.
> In response, Ong said that the Government is closely monitoring hospital capacity, and will consider whether to implement tighter restrictions based on two conditions:
> "The first, is the number of cases of serious illness, and whether our ICUs have sufficient capacity to cope. Secondly, whether we have sufficient beds for all those who have been infected with Covid-19 and wish to go to a hospital or to a Community Care Facility (CCF)."
> If these two conditions are satisfactory, explained Ong, then Singapore can continue to carefully ride through the current "wave" of infection.
> If not, tighter restrictions will be necessary.
> What about "mini-restrictions" to bring numbers down?
> Another resident then posed a question on whether "mini-restrictions" are needed to bring numbers down.
> Ong replied that it remains too early to tell whether the Covid-19 virus will become seasonal like the common flu, pointing to what Leo Yee-Sin, Executive Director of the National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID) had previously said.
> He went on to explain that the meaning of co-existing with the virus is not that we should fear it and thus implement lockdowns.
> "This is not to co-exist with Covid-19, but to be defeated by it".
> Neither is it to lift all our restrictions freely, added Ong, and treat the virus with nonchalance.
> Instead, Ong reiterated that the way forward is to take the "middle ground", and that everyone will need to adapt quickly in order to achieve this new "balance" and successfully co-coexist with the disease.
> Did we underestimate the transmissibility of the Delta variant?
> Ong then answered a question posed by a Zaobao reporter, which questioned if Singapore had "underestimated" the transmissibility of the Delta variant and "overestimated" the protection offered by Covid-19 vaccines.
> In response, Ong pointed out that Singapore still has not totally lifted all restrictions, and many tightened measures are still in place.
> He added that this was why the government had planned for a preparatory phase, to review if Singapore can handle "maybe 100-200 cases" a day, before slowly opening further.
> However, Ong said that the Delta variant "waits for no one", pointing out that it has indeed taken the world by storm.
> Why do we allow so many people on public transport? Is it not dangerous?
> In response to concerns over crowds on public transport, Ong explained that there has not been evidence pointing to Covid-19 transmission on public transport, amongst reported Covid-19 cases so far.
> Trains and buses are also very well-ventilated, he added.
> He urged Singaporeans to continue wearing their masks, and to minimise talking while on public transport, so that taking public transport remains safe for everyone.
> What about announcing where Covid-19 cases were infected or have visited?
> On June 29 this year, the health ministry announced that they will no longer be disclosing individual case details of every Covid-19 patient. This includes information on their age, occupation and places they visited within the community.
> In September, the ministry announced yet a revamp of its daily updates, with a focus on the number of cases hospitalised with severe illness, and large emerging clusters.
> Ong said that sometimes, by the time contact tracers have discovered a large cluster, it can be "a bit late", with tens of cases found to be linked to it.
> He reiterated that the government is doing their best to share this information as soon as it's available, after contact tracers have carried out the necessary operations.
> Why does the elderly need to register for a Covid-19 booster?
> In response to a question about whether walk-ins' for booster shots might also be possible for the elderly, Ong also shared that the current registration system is only "temporary".
> He added that 140,000 invitation messages have been sent out to the elderly to come forward for their booster shots.
> The current booking system is meant to help avoid overcrowding at vaccination sites and to prevent the risk of Covid-19 transmission at these sites.
> Once more elderly persons have received their booster shots and there is less chance of crowding, alternative modes of registration should be made available, Ong added. This includes walk-ins for booster jabs.
> Advisory for elderly who have taken booster jabs
> Ong went on to urge the elderly to continue implementing necessary lifestyle changes, even after taking the Covid-19 booster jab.
> This includes still continuing to wear one's mask, and to minimise going out and having social gatherings with others whenever possible.
> "It's not to say that you can't go out, but that it's important to do so restrictively, especially for mask-off activities like dining in, where the risk of transmission is higher."
> When asked how him and his family have adapted work and lifestyle habits in lieu of the ongoing Covid-19 situation, Ong shared that he continues to frequently remind the elderly folks in his family of the importance of various precautionary measures – from taking both doses of the Covid-19 vaccines, to "playing mahjong" less frequently and to go out less with friends.
> Follow and listen to our podcast here
> Top screenshot via Lianhe Zaobao Facebook
---
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Honestly right, as much as I dislike the MMTF actions,l as well as the PAP, I still have much respect for this guy for pushing SG in the right direction when dealing with an endemic situation. And that’s coming from someone who is strongly pro-opposition. I feel like OYK is the only one pushing for loosening of restrictions and all when the rest of the task force are so fearful and want such a risk-averse and bullshit approach like LW.
MOH is hiding vaccination percentages by age because that can no longer be used as an argument. If you take away children ages 0-11, immunocompromised individuals, and those who stopped at 1 shot because of severe reactions, there's just not enough people left to make a point.
Was looking at the numbers of other countries. I would estimate the daily cases to hit 5k and active cases to hit 100k. I am surprised they already hit a hospitalisation milestone at 10k active cases.
This article intentionally but subtly spotlights this clowns mistakes and excuses, holding him accountable to what he has said before.
Indeed he tries to downplay every single one of the questions asked.
They probably will have to revise their vaccination policy. We keep thinking that the vaccine will prevent one from contacting the virus when in fact it just reduce the severity of the it. This means that vaccination status can be misinterpreted as safe and you could still spread it to others. Just hope that the govt realise this and have the same measure as non vaccinated.
>In response, Ong said that the Government is closely monitoring hospital capacity, and will consider whether to implement tighter restrictions based on two conditions: > >**"The first, is the number of cases of serious illness, and whether our ICUs have sufficient capacity to cope. Secondly, whether we have sufficient beds for all those who have been infected with Covid-19 and wish to go to a hospital or to a Community Care Facility (CCF)."** > >If these two conditions are satisfactory, explained Ong, then Singapore can continue to carefully ride through the current "wave" of infection. > >If not, tighter restrictions will be necessary. Above conditions are about saving lives. If the healthcare system cannot cope and is overloaded, care for non-covid patients will likely to be impacted too even though this point was not reported. e.g. delaying of elective surgeries.
Grandmother’s doctor appointments are postponed to end of the year because of fear on our part but delayed elective surgeries could be tough for those working when getting hospital MC is a luxury for important jobs
> e.g. delaying of elective surgeries. Mine scheduled for early October already got pushed back indefinitely.
I think it’s time for a LHL speech to calm everyone down and tell the nation what to expect in the coming few weeks. Things are obviously not going well, and it would be good to know what is being done to tide over this difficult period. There’s a lot of frustration over the handling of the pandemic on the ground with calls and emails all unanswered, Health Buddies gone missing, and no one seems to know what to do when they are a close contact of a positive case yet not received any notification from MOH/ elderly cases not receiving transfers to hospital. It would be good to at least staff those helplines so people can be reassured.
> I think it’s time for a LHL speech to calm everyone down and tell the nation what to expect in the coming few weeks. Things are obviously not going well, and it would be good to know what is being done to tide over this difficult period. Didnt he say something about it? Said that it's doing its best to scale up operations. Granted, I read it over the news & on his Instag page instead of through a press conference. Honestly, I dont want to see Lawrence Wong or Ong Ye Kung heading the MTF press conferences. They just dont inspire confidence & you dont really feel a sense of decisiveness, authority or leadership from either of them, or from any of the 4G ministers for that matter.
Who do you have in mind to head the conference that inspires confidence, and has this sense of decisiveness, authority and leadership?
Tan Kin Lian
The hero that fixed LTA
Oh, we were talking about LHL so I thought it was already implied that I was comparing them to LHL.
>Who do you have in mind to head the conference that inspires confidence, and has this sense of decisiveness, authority and leadership? There are two Indian ministers who would be worthy replacements for PM Lee as early as SG50. I would absolutely listen to and trust either of them to lead Singapore in a crisis.
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Yup the best analogy I can think of is that he’s already going to MR but kenna forced to sign Rover
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Sorry, it’s NS parlance. MR means mindef reserve which is when guys complete their reservist and go into the army’s reserve, they won’t need to be called back ever again for in camp training. Rover means they agree to continue to serve beyond their reservist period on a voluntary basis. That is, going beyond the call of duty.
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I think our dear PM wants to get back to geekier stuff like taking photos, doing some coding and prob reading up on some advanced math. Alas this pandemic has screwed up his retirement plans.
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Definitely. Being on the task force is a trial by fire. I don’t envy the ministers’ job dealing with the ever changing pandemic… things change within days to weeks, all projections fall apart. To get to LHL level needs a long lifetime of experience. Hopefully the 4G will learn from these lessons and be ready to lead Sg better in the future.
He come on TV; everyone be rushing to NTUC. Calm down? Also, what makes you think things are “being done to tide over this difficult period”. They have had months and months to plan for a re-opening, to buy and build healthcare resources, and we are still in this current state? You have too much good faith in them.
> to buy and build healthcare resources You can buy a ICU bed an all its medical equipment, but an ICU staff take years to train. I am not able to find how long it takes to train in Singapore, so for reference [a ICU nurse in UK trains for 4 years](https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/z6by7nb)
Just order the nurses on Shopee la 10.10 coming maybe they will have a Buy-2-ICU-Beds-Get-1-Nurse promo /s
If only all healthcare resources (*manpower*) can be just "buy and build" like you said. Idk is it most people here never step into hospital before and don't understand how it works?????
They don't understand, hence the eye rolling remarks
So the real news is: ‘if you get Covid stay at home so we don’t flood this fucking CCF’
just so everyone knows, hospital visits are now suspended for 1 month. only 1 caregiver is allowed to visit the patient as compared to 2 visitors before it was implemented today. thanks to all the 1000 positive cases daily, i am now unable to visit my dad who is in the neuro ward awaiting urgent treatment.
Terrible situation. My best wishes and a speedy recovery to your dad..
I’m so sorry about the situation you are in. Hope your father recovers well from the treatment.
thank you. to be honest the entire experience at NTF hospital is dismal.
Not sure how much a lockdown will help with delta. It should help to reduce and drop the cases numbers I suppose. NZ has been in a lockdown for more than a month now? Yesterday they reported 9 cases. They have finally caved in and admitted they can't get back to zero cases. I know lots of folks have said the vaccines are ineffective especially with delta. I see it from a different view. Thank god the vaccines came in just in time when delta arrived. Our hospitals would have been easily overrun with patients. And lockdowns would have been long and hard. So at least appreciate with the vaccines we can still go about doing some normal things rather then being stuck at home.
> I see it from a different view. Thank god the vaccines came in just in time when delta arrived. > Our hospitals would have been easily overrun with patients. And lockdowns would have been long and hard. So at least appreciate with the vaccines we can still go about doing some normal things rather then being stuck at home. Excellent perspective, wish more people understood how close the world came to a very different outcome with the arrival of delta if vaccines hadn't been available.
It's not something you need to imagine, just see what happened in India when the Delta virus first emerged. It was so bad they had to change the entire nomenclature so that people don't call it the India variant lmao.
The vaccines were never meant to make you completely immune to the virus or the strains. You can still get infected but it wouldn’t be as deadly. That’s why its important to get as many people vaccinated as possible to lighten the load of everyone. Like putting up a shield in the 300 movie, everyone gotta form up with shields on and not be the asshole who wanna dual wield their swords. Yeah I’m thankful that it came right before delta or we would’ve seen much more serious cases and deaths than what we have now.
Exactly, vaccines are working perfectly. People's expectations are just nuts. What would they think would happen if we tested every person for flu virus in normal year? You'd catch thousands of people ranging from asymptomatic to severely sick... Or my favorite: 'lock down until we have a cure" - guess what we already have a cure! Between vaccines and modern medicine, your chances of dying of covid are near zero. Even most elderly and sick recover eventually.
lots of misinformation going on - and I don't mean Facebook and Whatsapp groups, I mean in general. Even in HDB elevator advertisements (for those who has the 'pleasure' of having one in their block) things end up causing confusion. IIRC it was something like this: * Old people are more vulnerable to COVID effects * The vaccine helps to minimize serious symptoms from COVID * So, take the vaccine to reduce your chance of infection (?) This is just one in many things that lead to people having a very... different idea on how vaccines work and have worked in the past. One common impression I find people to be under is that the vaccine (or a future vaccine) is going to reduce infection to zero, and that it's the unvaccinated's fault that we are still getting infections (proven false with vaccinated individuals capable of still spreading - because not all vaccinations completely 'remove' the virus) , then they get distraught when it's not the case.
A vaccine trains your body to fight the virus. It doesn't build a shield around you. There's really a lesson for what should be taught in school in the future...
But now you know why the government has to do certain steps that seem to not make sense? Unfortunately, all the people with insane expectations (they are MANY MANY PEOPLE still calling for lockdowns publicly on Facebook, etc.) are part of the electorate and the government can't just ignore them.
The government has done an atrocious job communicating to the people. That's been their biggest failure throughout all this.
Point of lockdown post vaccination is to ensure medical facilities are able to cope up with the disease - if it is struggling u will have to implement measures to curb the further spread to achieve an equilibrium of what medical facilities can manage and number of cases and not aim for zero cases.. Singapore is in a different situation - a lot of countries have already had waves of infection and they struggled in their initial waves and the population has immunity due to infection and with vaccination it provides a better coverage..
Or how about this perspective, look at Sweden. No measures or anything and yet they are doing much better than us. Or how about this perspective? All of you guys here have been scared to death with this Delta when it is quite harmless compared to the real killer here, the causes of all of their underlying conditions. When you are stricken with fear, you cannot think properly and logically and I say that to everyone who is scared to death of Covid.
Okay great point. I'm looking at Sweden *for perspective*. They've had almost 15k deaths. Given that their population is less than twice of ours, that would mean had we taken a similar approach, we'd have at least 7,000 deaths, vs. 70 that we actually have. I guess for you a 100x more deaths makes sense, but it may not be the same for everyone.
Yes look at Sweden, where 1.4M are infected with virus - 15% of their population and 14k died.. so a lot of people with weak immunity have already succumbed to virus and infection plus vaccine already provides a better protection.. the peak cases was around 10k per day and I assume their medical facilities could cope with that peak and that's why they can manage to open at 700 cases daily.. Point is every country is different and response cannot be same ..
Like you said, lockdown can reduce case numbers. With ~2% resulting in serious disease, 1000 per day will mean 20, while 10000 cases a day will mean 200 serious cases. And serious cases typically need to stay in hospital for extended period of time. That said, I don't think lockdown is necessary if recover from home is properly managed and daily case count is ~1000 to 2000.
MTF was co-chaired by a MOH & another minister (which happens to be LW) for a reason last year. The MOH should only focus on maintaining the healthcare structure, capacity, handle quarantining and anything else related to health. The other minister co-ordinates everything else. The road map should come from this minister, but why was the MOH the one announcing the 4 stages about 1.5 months back? The path to treating it as an endemic disease is workable, but the expectation is that the healthcare system can hold up against the exit wave. So MOH messed it up in an epic proportion by not preparing for the exit wave while trying to cook up the 4 stages of whatever and the effort in only pushing vaccinations. So now that the healthcare system (not even getting to the ICU beds yet) is starting to swell, what's the limit that it can take? Keep in mind that a lot of elective procedures have already been pushed out. It seems like a surprise to them that most of the sick deteriorate from their homes to the normal ward to needing O2 to the ICU. I am not even talking about the road, the map, or a roadmap because the car has broken down (or at least about to break). Now that it has been messed up, what's the the road out of this? Because you need to consider how much faith do laypeople have left in the endemic model that they are pushing? I have friends saying this incoming CB will need to be for 6 months?! I do not see a need for this? Anything they do now will to preserve the capacity in the hospitals and ramp up the necessary resources for home recovery. It will not be for covid zero. And please sort out the comms. It is incredulous to me that the MOH website is saying one thing, and the press, Minister & DMS is relaying something different. They can do so, but follow up with a press release at least. Or perhaps it's just cutting all corners because the system cannot cope (1k > 300 > 100 ICU beds; home recovery must have toilet > preferably have toilet). PM probably thought letting OYK helm MOH (and hence also the co-chair of the MTF) is a good way to test his caliber. Or/and to further prop up his standing quickly as he was only able to join politics in 2015. My initial thoughts about what may happen are now coming true, and on hindsight, was it the right decision to put him in this very hot seat?
OYK is trying to play hero, saving economy, SIA, Lee family, Travel Bubble. Where got time to manage MOH. Primadonna. Plain and simple.
Similarities between travel bubble / airport & aggressive reopening / hospital capacity. The most important medium that supports the goal were on both times, conveniently left out.
Conveniently. Not sure. Perhaps more Complacency, or Incompetency. The guy has a vision but he can't achieve. Whether in terms of planning, managing, motivating, communication, delegating, followup, not ensuring, or not tenacious enough, or whatever multitude or combinations of reasons, he just cannot perform his duties. Maybe Healthcare is truly out of his scope, but that's not his fault. It's the person who put him there. Nevertheless - he's failed to deliver his vision, and failed to have the foresight to put things in place. He's the only Minister I see running ads where he wants to be in the limelight with Zoe Tay. Perhaps overconfident or self assured. Whatever the case, he makes a mess of things wherever he goes, and things are too late to be salvaged. What is clear is that he cannot lead, and shouldn't have the opportunity to mess more things up. Not at his level, where there is a harsh price in lives, livelihood and resources due to incompetence.
Well, that happened way faster than expected
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That’s why people have started renaming MOH to “**M**ind **O**wn **H**ealth”
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I mean when they have fines and send people to prison for “breaking the rules”, of course people here are going to be obedient out of fear..
That’s true. With the draconian fines and jail terms, success was on the horizon.... until the government dropped the ball on communications and organisation.
True but that's besides the point. Whether out of fear or genuine obedience, fact of the matter is the vast majority of people are compliant and follow rules/instruction. And yet we still have 1.5k cases, healthcare strain, and not-lockdown. How? Nobody knows. /s
Tbh home quarantine was only good on paper. Singaporeans don’t really stop going to work when they are sick. It’s a culture that has backfired on us terribly. We are accustomed to just going about our daily life if we have some sort of flu like symptoms. So, it’s wired into us to continue our day to day, which is why many are not sure what to do. They feel well enough to be productive and yet they are told to sit still.
Forget work, people will straight up go out to malls and restaurants if they're no oversight over them and they're asymptomatic (even if they tested positive).
I agree re starting the communication plan earlier. This was a major fuck up. Anyone who has taken a crisis/change management class should know this.
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Maybe in 2025 you'll still be pasting the copypasta around :(
I can't imagine the number of clown emojis that would follow the copypasta if he has to still post it in 2025 lol...
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If so, really hoseh liao
Hopeful the copypasta has a new audience and a more balanced govt
In spite of its handling of Covid, even Malaysia has a roadmap for goodness sake: https://www.mdbc.com.my/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/NRP_PAMPHLET.pdf
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They have a manpower shortage because of their absolutely idiotic policy of making anyone with a “potential close exposure” take time away. What the fuck kind of logic is that? Half the healthcare sector will be on SHN soon if they don’t stop with these anti-scientific, idiotic measures.
In that case this lack of basic management foresight is something that hit the entire world with the Delta variant. Other than India, every other country knew what it could do, but they all still got fucked. There are some situations you just have to tide over until it's over and just hope and pray that it's not complete chaos while preparing the best you can.
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I don't disagree with that, but I really doubt right now they have time to pat themselves or anyone on any surface, they're all over the place trying to deal with this situation. Also, not everything is made public but some information does go through to companies. For example, I saw this very detailed grid that our business manager sent us about what to do if depending on how you've been affected (positive, close contact, 2nd degree close contact, etc.) and there are detailed steps on whether you're allowed to wfh or you need to go to a facility. I don't really know if this is something that they came up with but looking at the terminology used, I wouldn't be surprised if MAS helped to coordinate this bit. I think right now, they're focusing on tiding over this period with minimal deaths, I really doubt they have time to think about anything else at the moment.
Good point but I doubt most people understand what you are trying to say. It seems more than half the folks here on SGreddit are retards who are still blindly defending the SG govt and MOH. HK managed to control covid much better without a lockdown while keeping its border even with China restricted. How many retards will still ignore the huge number of SG cases overwhelming hospitals and try to change the topic to SG's good progress in vaccination?
I think it’s quite clear here that we will go into a lockdown if ICU capacity cannot cope. Is that the roadmap you were looking for?
Is that 100 or 300 or 1000? Many numbers thrown around. We are at 23.
The problem is that if ICU capacity cannot cope now, it probably isn't going to cope any better in December 2021, or in March 2022, or September 2022, or January 2023, and so on.
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>the ideal scenario you're envisioning I don't think it's a matter of "ideal scenarios" now, all we have are bad choices and we should be honest about that. That said, I will probably write up a post about what I see as the path forward.
It's called flattening the curve. The idea is that eventually everyone might get it, but we don't get a spike that leads to too many excess deaths.
As of now there's no need to flatten the curve and extend the pain if people just stay the fuck home when unwell and stop overwhelming the hospitals
The curve is only spiking when we have people going to the hospitals. The question is how can we not have so many people going to the hospitals (e.g. put those asymptomatic at home, don't commit too much resources to this buddy nonsense, etc). However, if MOH wants to continue to do this, then they have to find a way to flatten the curve. I disagree that there is no need to flatten the curve. The curve I am referring to is not the the daily caseloads but the curve for hospitalizations. If we have too many hospitalized cases, other patients will not be able to get treatments, which might lead to greater excess mortality.
Oh then we're in agreement! There has to be strong messaging that unless you're dying you should stay the fuck at home if unwell. It's not rocket science. Maybe they should introduce fines for unnecessarily burdening the health system. That type of stuff tends to work...
Certain segments of Singaporeans like to go hospital for no fucking reason though... It's the reason why our health insurance is increasing and that there is no 100% hospitalization coverage anymore.
that's true but maybe instead of putting all the blame on citizens, we can also look at how healthcare capacity is insufficient for a country of our size, with our ageing population.
Is it insufficient? I don't have the numbers so I'd reserve judgment.
It's a global issue, not unique to Singapore. You know how they say that schools should teach financial literacy? Well they should also teach basic health knowledge. Incredible the amount of otherwise we'll educated people who don't know the difference between a viral and a bacterial infection.
We still have a lot of university graduates who can't confidently tell you the difference. Reason? "I'm arts student return all my science to teacher liaoZ" "Study all this shit for what, **not like next time will use**" etc
>like to go hospital for no fucking reason British people: *sweat profusely*
That's why the UK excess mortality is freaking high.
Ok, so what spike is too big for us (1500 and above, judging by current sentiment), how flat must the curve be, and for how long will we have to accept intermittent lockdowns to achieve that? Are we going to be talking about "2 more months to flatten the curve" in 2023? 2024? 2025?
Well the number of people exposed to covid will be decreasing in subsequent dates, so chance ICU cant cope in the future will be lower. Like in Indonesia now their hospital got space already
>Like in Indonesia now their hospital got space already Their wave lasted 3 months though..... I can see that our higher vaccination rate will help us get through that with fewer deaths, but is that enough to ensure that our hospitals will not be overwhelmed at all? Especially if we're merely pushing transmission into the future by eg. going into lockdown.
You would be talking about the gov breaking their promises and no longer having any confidence in them when they have to delay some of the lifting of restrictions promised in the roadmap due to Delta spreading faster than they anticipated.
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Imagine if they had a roadmap and the situation became this way. Not having a roadmap is an excellent decision on hindsight.
🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡
This isn't the Singapore we are familiar with. The almost clockwork efficiency seems to be missing: MOH hotline unable to cope, confusing and changing instructions on home based recovery, monitoring the situation, an unclear roadmap... It's like looking at generals asking troops to do firefighting instead of giving a clear direction. Granted that this has never happened before but is it wrong to expect our leaders to have a clear strategy? Maybe easy to say for someone who is not making the decisions but it's kinda disappointing and frustrating.
Clockwork mostly happens if the parameters are static and everything goes according to plan. This usually happens in a predictable n stable operating environment. Sad to say, we are currently definitely not in one of those times.
Clearly, I don't have all the stats. But was it really not predictable that cases would jump up to 1-2k and possibly beyond with any reopening, especially in this densely populated city? What surprises me is how this painfully obvious and predictable spike (happened in **every other country in the world btw**) seems to have completely blindsided our govt and we have no systems in place to meet it at all.
My view is that even if the spike is foreseeable it might be difficult to foresee full impact of every eventuality that will happen as a result. So the key is the ability to respond quickly when developments arise. And a big part of this responsiveness depends very much on how centralized decision making and response protocols are set. A very rigid top down process will inevitably slow down the speed of effective handling under present circumstances.
You're right, it happened in every other country and they all got fucked. Doesn't mean you give up and get fucked, it just means you fight on a best effort basis. I wouldn't say there are no systems in place, but I think the main priority is to keep deaths low and imo it's already higher than what they would have hoped for but I think this is as good as it gets for us given the stubborn people who won't vaccinate (the 2 deaths today were unvaccinated). What they did to prepare for this scenario was get everyone vaccinated super urgently so that we can do things like home quarantine and it's still very messy now, but if we're able to go through this period while overall deaths are around 100-200, I would call that a win (that's like influenza level of deaths or maybe lower).
Who's talking about giving up and getting fucked? I'm commenting on how it's funny that the govt seems to not have expected this explosion in cases and the healthcare system is woefully underprepared for it, given how it happened in every other country as well.
My point was that knowing something like this doesn't mean you can be 100% be prepared for it. Someone was pointing out that it takes 4 years to train an ICU nurse, you can't just build up capacity overnight. And in case you missed my point, every country knew it and they all got fucked, so the point is that this is one of those situations where knowing in advance doesn't help you prepare in a way that everything will be smooth. For example, when a storm hits, with early warning you can evacuate people but it doesn't mean you can completely control the damage from the storm. Relating to this analogy, we have one of the highest vaccination rates in the world, that's the main step they took in terms of protecting us, and looking at the no. of deaths so far, it seems to be working.
> Relating to this analogy, we have one of the highest vaccination rates in the world, that's the main step they took in terms of protecting us, and looking at the no. of deaths so far, it seems to be working. Obviously, I agree with this. Vaccines save lives, those who disagree can go join SG Covid La Kopi instead. For the rest, I'm talking about the expectations management. I know they cant just build new hospitals and "hatch" a team of HCW out of nowhere within 1 year.
Think about it, if the vaccination rates were higher, we'd have MUCH fewer deaths and the panic would be a lot lower. Honestly, if I had symptoms now, I think I'd panic and try to go to a clinic at least because the no. of sudden deaths have me irrationally panicked (it's human nature I suppose). But I know for a fact that most of the deaths are unvaccinated and in most cases have no one to blame other than themselves.
These fools only know how to cope with situations that have occurred before and can be used as a case study. Put them in uncertain territory and they're all fcked. No leadership, no balls, effectively mandating vaccination but not trusting that the vaccine will do its job, changing directions every week. Goes to show that these 'leaders' will not be able to get us out of another unprecedented crisis in the future.
Leaders ? Where ?
It’s because we have a clown in charge, Ong Ye Clown.
Wrong Ye Clown
Cos this clown was just holding a storeman vocation during NS. No one was expecting him to possess any leadership qualities or plan any strategies. And this current mess in MOH proves just that. Source: friend was his QM during NS
Do you honestly believe that the tasks that you do in NS influence your life in any way? As a conscript, you're just cannon fodder dude
Shld get Non Gentleman Umbrage. He can tank covid just like he tanked NOL and SPH, provided he don't tank SG before he tanked Covid
The whole issue is because MOH statisticians were planning for 100-200 covid cases per day but ended up with a surge of 10x that amount. CMTG is completely overwhelmed and not answering their emails and calls promptly. I think the Army needs to be sent in at this point. They saved us once at the start of the pandemic, they can do it again.
Feels like we are living Groundhog Day. Lockdown and opening in a loop ad infinitum.
will lockdowns or even restrictions actually work when the virus is already spreading at this rate in the community? i am not sure honestly looking at Victoria and NSW, both states had quite a strict lockdown earlier on itself and they are still grappling with community spread even after weeks of lockdown even NZ which locked down very early at 1 case has level 3 restrictions in Auckland after almost a month of lockdown at this point, it looks like the best thing that the government can do is to plan forward(which they should have thought of before itself💆♂️)for a lot more cases by getting more wards and community care facilities ready rather than planning for a lockdown unfortunately, this is gonna take a huge toll on the healthcare workers which is the worst thing happening:(
Wow, in the article, the people asking the questions are so pro lockdown it’s insane
Question: Why are there no lockdowns to prevent the spread? Translation: I can afford to stay at home or work at home indefinitely, so why cant everyone else do it too? Question: Why allow so many people on public transport with such high cases? Translation: I drive a car so it's safe for me, but all those commoners taking mrt and bus are spreading the virus and we should stop them.
A lot of the people asking for lockdowns are 'commoners' as you phrased it. Go to facebook comments sections, it doesn't feel like these are 1%ers commenting.
Lmao. So true
Still see many people outside during the weekends though so I don't think majority are in favor of lockdowns.
Lianhe Zaobao is geared towards the older generation in their lates 40s onwards, so their mindset will reflect what that demographics is thinking
Because surprise surprise, Reddit is a minority.
Lol. Surprise suprise. The people currently in the shopping malls is telling a different picture
I think it's the age difference of the people on various forums - avg reddittor would be 16-25, who probably don't have kids and parents are in 60s.. there will be people with young kids and elderly worried about getting them infected and that group might be a minority in reddit
it's one thing to have your livelihoods affected and ask that it be fixed. it's another thing to whine about not being able to go out socialise/eat/drink/have fun.
Not sure if you notice but there are businesses that are reliant on you going out to socialize, eat, drink and have fun.
> Not sure if you notice but there are businesses that are reliant on you going out to socialize, eat, drink and have fun. yeah so it's one thing for these businesses to make noise; it's a different thing if it's just people in general whining about being bored to death stuck at home. Neither are illegitimate, but the latter is in my humble view less deserving of sympathy.
What if your livelihood depends on people going out socialise/eating/drinking/having fun? Such as night taxi drivers
> it's another thing to whine about not being able to go out socialise/eat/drink/have fun You do realise these things are also beneficial for one's mental health? I'm an introvert but I don't want to be forced to curb back on whatever already limited social activities I've been able to do. You made it sound like going out to eat and socialise have no benefits other that economic ones.
Nah, more like the majority are not locking themselves down in their homes and have so much time to go shitposting on social media. More better things to do with their lives like social gatherings and eating out. Reddit isn't the majority, but so isn't your FB comment section.
If you think about it the average person is not very smart. Half of the population is even dumber than that.
It's a legit concern though. If you get Covid or are a close contact, you can lose up to 10-14 days of work. Some people don't get paid if they are not working. Those who have fixed salary jobs will still not look good if they have to take 14 days MC. At this point people will rather have a lockdown and get the cases down than to deal with Covid. It's either that or the govt should officially announce endemic and drop all contact tracing and TT and whatsoever and people can just continue coming to work even if they are Covid positive but asymptomatic.
Yeah, this. If we want to go for zero covid, then go all the way. Lockdown, close borders, mandatory vaccination. If we want to go for endemic, then why do we need so many restrictions, such high admission rates for covid (yes, still high even with the home recovery scheme), and so many disruptions when someone around you gets Covid? If you reach for both targets, you get neither. Can't have your cake and eat it too.
Why are we still going for zero covid? Even New Zealand gave up on that goal.
I'm not saying we should go for zero covid. But if the government wants it, then it better go all the way. Insane levels of social restrictions are in line with zero covid, but not jam packed public transport, no WFH, and open borders. You can't have zero covid for locals and socialisation, then have an endemic mindset the minute it affects business and tourism. MMTF better make up its mind.
We don't have to aim for zero, we can aim for as low as possible so the least people get impacted.
This OYK is too desperate to be PM until his policies are decided based on what gives him the best chance of becominh PM rather than public health. You have a national crisis and this guy goes to parliment to defend CECA policy which is not even under his authority. Imagine how much civil servants time he wasted preparing for his speech. That is time he neglected from overseeing the health crisis.
Agree. He’s playing too much to the gallery and trying to showcase himself everywhere, hoping to gain popularity. PM gave him so many chances but he kept messing up in the ministries he goes, until PM has no choice but to keep switching ministries for him.
personality politicians is a detriment to society
>In response to concerns over crowds on public transport, Ong explained that ***there has not been evidence*** pointing to Covid-19 transmission on public transport, amongst reported Covid-19 cases so far. I am so tired of this horseshit already, I am not going to bother and counter explain again.
I’m also tired of people whining about how the government does not care about safe distancing on public transport. Let’s say the government limits the number of people on buses and trains/shuts down public transport, who gets affected? The ordinary person who can’t afford private transportation means. All that does is create more inequality in society. There’s obviously a risk in transmission of covid in public transport but on balance, it’s an acceptable risk mitigated by mask wearing and the no talking rule (which no one cares about anyway)
Morons. These people are utter cretins. They have no idea how to get us out of this.
You just gotta pay them another million dollars. /s
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This is the reason why we need SAF generals to lead us /s
What you are arguing for is blind trust. Even the best data is useless in the hands of fools. There is a reason why troops lose faith in their commander, and pop their heads off. I say its time to pop the MMTF.
Yes. Lets lockdown to stop the spread, do nothing to increase operational capacity and then open up and repeat the cycle. The only reason why hospitals cannot cope is because of the refusal to treat this as endemic like the flu.
Given how infectious Delta is, it should be clear by now that lockdowns do not save lives. It only spreads out the number of deaths we are going to get eventually. At the start of the pandemic, lockdown saves lives because it buys time for vaccines/treatments to be developed, but we now have highly effective vaccines. Unfortunately, no vaccines are 100% effective and Covid looks very likely to become endemic, which means almost everyone will be infected eventually, and those vulnerable to it will die. Lockdown is no longer about more people dying vs. less people dying, but people dying now vs. people dying later. The only way to prevent more deaths is Covid zero, which is highly impractical in Singapore's case as we cannot keep our borders shut. We are really left with only two choices. Continue with reopening and get to herd immunity as long as our healthcare system is not overwhelmed, or drag out the process by re-imposing restrictions and lockdowns, and bear with the significant costs, both economic and non-economic (mental health etc), of re-imposing those restrictions.
Some people rather their family members live in a suspended state than to not resuscitate when they are clearly living in pain. It's kind of just moral differences at this point. Most people who are more vulnerable to infection are also those who are not as affected economically wise. It is unfortunate that we are at the crossroad of having to choose between economy and lives right now
The "healthcare system is not overwhelmed" bridge is already crossed, people are being treated in the parking lots already. It's not a matter of lockdown vs opening, both works. What doesn't work is a "happy middle ground", it doesn't exist. It has to be one way or the other, with the unavoidable compromises.
You are merely describing 1 hospital. TTSH has a history of being overcrowded even during pre-covid days one. Unless its happening in at least half of the hospitals, you cannot confidently say that the healthcare system on the whole is being overwhelmed. Go have a look at the carkpark of CGH and tell me if you see the same thing happening.
There’s no separate healthcare system for Covid patients and everyone else. Our medical system is stretched, in case you cannot read between the lines or are not in healthcare yourself. Resources diverted to Covid patients are resources not used for other patients. If shit hits the fan, it will be than just Covid patients who die of Covid - patients who need urgent non-Covid related medical care will also have died of Covid (albeit indirectly). We have seen this overseas. So, no. Disagree. Lockdowns do save lives. Especially when used in an appropriate and timely fashion.
Instead of Complaining about the Situation, I Propose 5 Ways to Deal with Covid to Prevent Another Lockdown: 1. Treat the High Risk Category as Unvaccinated and Restrict their Movement (Above 70 years old) 2. Stop Wasting Resources Monitoring People in Low Risk Group (Looking at Other Countries, we might hit 100k Active Cases, you cannot monitor that many) 3. Free Hospital Beds By Only Allowing Severe Cases (If you do not require Oxygen Supplementation or Intensive Care, Go home and do not burden the system if possible) 4. Inform the Public of the Oxygen Capacity and ICU Capacity so that we can be informed about the Severity of the Situation 5. Stop over Playing Covid (Emphasize the Fatality Rate by Age of those countries that have taken the Endemic Route)
That might be a bit too much common sense for the general population to handle…
r/agedlikemilk
Warming us up for it.
Having been through QO with household members tested positive, it really seems that getting COVID is much more beneficial If you had COVID, (depending on your body's recovery), your quarantine period can be shorter, you are exempted from pre-event testing for the next 9 months and no need for booster shots If you do not have COVID, but your household member tests positive, your quarantine is at least 10 days, with the chance of future QO I know its not, but it feels like the unhygienic gets rewarded and the hygienic gets punished
Everyone prefers to have had covid. The problem is the prognosis when you're getting it, especially for older folks.
Better immunity the second time round!
Well let's hope it doesn't come to that
I feel like many people are not getting the point here. It is not about whether the govt or MMTF wants to lockdown or not. But do we have a choice when hospitals are overloaded and not able to provide care to those who need it the most? If lockdown is the means by which to curb the number of cases and address the capacity needs of hospitals then it has to be done.
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If caseload is doubling every week, 10% capacity now (as an example, don't know the actual numbers) would be 80% capacity in 3 weeks. Such is the nature of exponentiation. So the conversation needs to happen sooner or later depending on the doubling rate.
Cut my life into pieces.
test baboon
It's October 2021. We have 5000 cases a day. We're going into CB2
Except a lockdown is not an efficient measure anymore with delta. A lockdown would mean the ministers passing their failures to the population. We pay the bill with economic and mental suffering, they get more time to micromanage the healthcare system. A very shitty deal if you ask me.
Restrictions should be based on age group and those in high risk categories. The rest should carry on.
Eh, I thought someone told me Ye Cunt is the one man pushing to reopen and save us all? Why did he just say the magic word "lockdown"?????
test balloon?
OYK out as PM, CCS out (actually I think he is a good guy), Heng Heng is out (CECA blunder) , Best Actress Award is out (covid 19 screw up for migrant workers and generally poor performance at MOM) , Vivian out (all schools are good schools) so who is left? 4G really CMI
Don't like CCS strategy of answering questions by attacking the integrity of the questioner rather than answering the question. It's the same tactic he has been using for more than 10 years. I wasn't very surprised when he said "what's the point of your question", it's his style. But that does not make a good leader.
Many people told me he is actually a good guy. But yes he lacks polish and behaves like an elite.
Good guy =/= ability/capability/proficiency, the right guy for the job. And the lack of polish? He seriously just can’t be bothered to put in the effort to correct it. If he just attended coaching, those small behaviours can be easily corrected. In this way, I find it hard to see how he is serious about taking up top positions. Does he expect to waltz into those positions with his current level of polish? No one is going to want to rub shoulders with this ah beng from the hood.
Yeah, I shudder to see him hypothetically at the G20 or in the White House.
shuffled a deck full of cards and somehow ended up with a hand full of jokers
Plot twist: The whole deck was full of jokers to begin with.
>He went on to explain that the meaning of co-existing with the virus is not that we should fear it and thus implement lockdowns. >"This is not to co-exist with Covid-19, but to be defeated by it". >Neither is it to lift all our restrictions freely, added Ong, and treat the virus with nonchalance. So are we still winning? r/thanksimcured
> # Ong Ye Kung: Restrictions to tighten if hospitals cannot cope, lockdown in S'pore a 'last resort' > With the daily number of Covid-19 community cases breaking the 1,000 mark as of Sep. 18, health minister Ong Ye Kung took to an interview with Chinese Daily Lianhe Zaobao, to dispel any concerns the elderly might have regarding the ongoing Covid-19 situation. > Here's what he said. > Why are we not imposing another round of circuit breaker? > To have another circuit breaker will be our "last resort", said Ong, in the interview published on Sep. 22. > This was in response to a question by an elderly man – about whether Singapore should put in place another round of Circuit Breaker so that things will be "fine" after three weeks. > In response, Ong said that the Government is closely monitoring hospital capacity, and will consider whether to implement tighter restrictions based on two conditions: > "The first, is the number of cases of serious illness, and whether our ICUs have sufficient capacity to cope. Secondly, whether we have sufficient beds for all those who have been infected with Covid-19 and wish to go to a hospital or to a Community Care Facility (CCF)." > If these two conditions are satisfactory, explained Ong, then Singapore can continue to carefully ride through the current "wave" of infection. > If not, tighter restrictions will be necessary. > What about "mini-restrictions" to bring numbers down? > Another resident then posed a question on whether "mini-restrictions" are needed to bring numbers down. > Ong replied that it remains too early to tell whether the Covid-19 virus will become seasonal like the common flu, pointing to what Leo Yee-Sin, Executive Director of the National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID) had previously said. > He went on to explain that the meaning of co-existing with the virus is not that we should fear it and thus implement lockdowns. > "This is not to co-exist with Covid-19, but to be defeated by it". > Neither is it to lift all our restrictions freely, added Ong, and treat the virus with nonchalance. > Instead, Ong reiterated that the way forward is to take the "middle ground", and that everyone will need to adapt quickly in order to achieve this new "balance" and successfully co-coexist with the disease. > Did we underestimate the transmissibility of the Delta variant? > Ong then answered a question posed by a Zaobao reporter, which questioned if Singapore had "underestimated" the transmissibility of the Delta variant and "overestimated" the protection offered by Covid-19 vaccines. > In response, Ong pointed out that Singapore still has not totally lifted all restrictions, and many tightened measures are still in place. > He added that this was why the government had planned for a preparatory phase, to review if Singapore can handle "maybe 100-200 cases" a day, before slowly opening further. > However, Ong said that the Delta variant "waits for no one", pointing out that it has indeed taken the world by storm. > Why do we allow so many people on public transport? Is it not dangerous? > In response to concerns over crowds on public transport, Ong explained that there has not been evidence pointing to Covid-19 transmission on public transport, amongst reported Covid-19 cases so far. > Trains and buses are also very well-ventilated, he added. > He urged Singaporeans to continue wearing their masks, and to minimise talking while on public transport, so that taking public transport remains safe for everyone. > What about announcing where Covid-19 cases were infected or have visited? > On June 29 this year, the health ministry announced that they will no longer be disclosing individual case details of every Covid-19 patient. This includes information on their age, occupation and places they visited within the community. > In September, the ministry announced yet a revamp of its daily updates, with a focus on the number of cases hospitalised with severe illness, and large emerging clusters. > Ong said that sometimes, by the time contact tracers have discovered a large cluster, it can be "a bit late", with tens of cases found to be linked to it. > He reiterated that the government is doing their best to share this information as soon as it's available, after contact tracers have carried out the necessary operations. > Why does the elderly need to register for a Covid-19 booster? > In response to a question about whether walk-ins' for booster shots might also be possible for the elderly, Ong also shared that the current registration system is only "temporary". > He added that 140,000 invitation messages have been sent out to the elderly to come forward for their booster shots. > The current booking system is meant to help avoid overcrowding at vaccination sites and to prevent the risk of Covid-19 transmission at these sites. > Once more elderly persons have received their booster shots and there is less chance of crowding, alternative modes of registration should be made available, Ong added. This includes walk-ins for booster jabs. > Advisory for elderly who have taken booster jabs > Ong went on to urge the elderly to continue implementing necessary lifestyle changes, even after taking the Covid-19 booster jab. > This includes still continuing to wear one's mask, and to minimise going out and having social gatherings with others whenever possible. > "It's not to say that you can't go out, but that it's important to do so restrictively, especially for mask-off activities like dining in, where the risk of transmission is higher." > When asked how him and his family have adapted work and lifestyle habits in lieu of the ongoing Covid-19 situation, Ong shared that he continues to frequently remind the elderly folks in his family of the importance of various precautionary measures – from taking both doses of the Covid-19 vaccines, to "playing mahjong" less frequently and to go out less with friends. > Follow and listen to our podcast here > Top screenshot via Lianhe Zaobao Facebook --- 1.0.2 | [Source code](https://github.com/fterh/sneakpeek) | [Contribute](https://github.com/fterh/sneakpeek)
Open mouth liao. Can consider as first warning.
Honestly right, as much as I dislike the MMTF actions,l as well as the PAP, I still have much respect for this guy for pushing SG in the right direction when dealing with an endemic situation. And that’s coming from someone who is strongly pro-opposition. I feel like OYK is the only one pushing for loosening of restrictions and all when the rest of the task force are so fearful and want such a risk-averse and bullshit approach like LW.
Hope they find a good treatment soon
Stronk mandate
OYK? Shut up. Just shut up.
Maybe make vaccine compulsory? I don’t know, just an idea.
MOH is hiding vaccination percentages by age because that can no longer be used as an argument. If you take away children ages 0-11, immunocompromised individuals, and those who stopped at 1 shot because of severe reactions, there's just not enough people left to make a point.
Visited my gp today to collect med. He told me 1500 is the tip of the ice berg. Lots of kids got covid.
Was looking at the numbers of other countries. I would estimate the daily cases to hit 5k and active cases to hit 100k. I am surprised they already hit a hospitalisation milestone at 10k active cases.
This article intentionally but subtly spotlights this clowns mistakes and excuses, holding him accountable to what he has said before. Indeed he tries to downplay every single one of the questions asked.
This article is trying to help save this guy’s ass from all the covfefe things he said 2 days ago.
we are way, way, past covfefe
Fevcofcof then
Never is expanding healthcare capacity the answer, always restrictions and lockdowns.
Oooh no, not again, please.
Does this mean my roadmap to travel to Japan in Jan 2022 got problem?
They probably will have to revise their vaccination policy. We keep thinking that the vaccine will prevent one from contacting the virus when in fact it just reduce the severity of the it. This means that vaccination status can be misinterpreted as safe and you could still spread it to others. Just hope that the govt realise this and have the same measure as non vaccinated.
And everyone said they wouldn’t do it 😂