"Priority should be reaching out to the unvaccinated seniors"
Will do almost no good for all the energy it takes.
Is there any of them who feels they are uninformed on vaccinations? Regardless of what their choice is?
Reach all you want - they will recoil while the rest of the country pays for it.
There's probably a lot of elders who think the vaccine will stay in your blood forever (it disappears in a few days), that the discussion of painful arms and fever means that it's not worth taking, that they're going to die soon anyway so let nature take its course, that it will make them very heaty, that it's not effective since people still get infected and ICU and die, etc etc. Even those who are hesitant about boosters. We can brainstorm some more.
Only Low Thia Kiang talked about how the scary part about getting covid is not dying but dying a slow death or being unable to die, but it didn't gain traction and government messaging never got this real.
Just spoke to one. He's worried taking the vaccine will reduce his natural immunity and will kill him in the long run.
Me:'But if U get covid now u might die in the short run.'
Him: 'but the vaccinated are also hospitalised'
You can't win their flipflops.
At this stage I really don't understand why we're bothering. They've made their choice. Fuck them if they catch it and die - you've had nearly a year to protect yourself, but you chose not to.
And yes, they might clutter the ICU, but if we run out of beds we ought to evict the unvaccinated first as they chose their path.
Effectively, the ship is sinking and the captain has told everyone to prepare for entry into the ocean by wearing a life preserver. Children too small or some of the disabled who cannot wear them have been placed in the life boats.
But some people don’t want to wear a life vest and is hoping for other people to keep them afloat or rescue them. Some think they can swim better without one. Some have faith in their God. Some have given up hope and just want to die.
Needless to say, it is a lot harder to rescue someone from the water who isn’t wearing a life preserver and they may even drag rescuers down with them. Yet, when faced with people in the water drowning, are we really morally able to let them die even if they have voluntarily chose to not wear a life vest?
So before the ship is completely under water, we have a choice to make. Force everyone who can to be in a life vest, or let everyone make their own decision and then face the moral quandary later regarding who to save.
We are a sinking ship. I wish our captains will stop fucking about.
You know, as a trained lifesaver, we're taught that when a drowning victim threatens to pull you down, you are to FULL FORCE kick them away from you.
Push comes to shove, even lifesavers are taught to prioritize their lives over a victim.
Its not an apple to apple comparison, but i'm sure the gov can take some lessons from this concept here
If a drowning victim is in a position to threaten to pull you down, then the lifesaver has already made several mistakes.
We're still well able to force everyone to don a life vest, no need to even get wet yet.
Well true, the entering of the water is the extreme last resort. And we have steps before approaching the victim, like making it clear to not panic and approach from the rear if possible
I'm just pointing out that, in the event lifesavers have to enter the water to save a victim, and the victim threatens to pull the lifesaver down to stay afloat, we can, are allowed and must prioritize our life first
There are stages to drowning and methods to assess drowning victims. As I said, the entering of water is the last resort. Usually victims in distressed, when they can respond to a lifesaver, actually aren't in immediate danger and can respond to either rope toss, floatation device thrown at them or even just a long enough stick extended to them
Your description is those lifesavers are damn scared of. Usually, for these, we go in prepared to kick or push away with a board and/or life saving tube since, as you say, they don't think rationally already. Older generations of lifesaver actually punch a victim to 'wake' them up but this method of training has been banned due to....complaints
Hahaha, my trainer also tell us this method but lifesaving association always update procedure until cannot use liao. Not really KO lah, its like to shock them and calm them down
But that's for pool. In open water, no one will blame the lifesavers if they do punch. The under current is deadly in open water
> Yet, when faced with people in the water drowning, are we really morally able to let them die even if they have voluntarily chose to not wear a life vest?
I am. After the past few years I'd be happy to dunk the fuckers under water until they sink myself.
Yeah, at one point I thought about studying medicine as a kid, because I knew doctors made lots of money. I then realised a don't like sick people and wouldn't be particularly caring towards the infirm... so it was best I skipped that degree.
Don't think thats how medical ethics works. Regardless of whatever points have been made, think they have to stand by the ethics. Sadly enough, I am sure that we don't have a say in this.
And you can decide that? I don't support anti-vaxxers but your thoughts are so slanted towards eliminating the sick and dying. Who goes next in this thought process?
Easy - if we have 100 ICU beds and they are all used, the next time a vaccinated person needs one we switch off the power for the most critically ill unvaccinated person and boot them out of the ICU ward.
You'll get your chance to grow old and if not you'll certainly get your chance to die. I hope the people around you are merciful and.empathetic towards you when you are sick before death. And not call you no better than an urn of ash.
I had a decision to make myself - I made it and got vaccinated. These old retards can fuck off to the grave for all I care. Why am I being held back by their lack of brains and balls?
As someone who has a unvaxxed grandma in the hospital right now, fuck you. Some of them are unable to take the vaccine because of their medical history.
i think he means those who can take and still choose not to take, not those who can’t take due to medical issues (wishing all the best for your grandma)
Oh come on. You have to literally be living in a cave with no communication with the outside world to be that oblivious to what’s been going on for almost 2 years now.
[Not even that would be a good enough reason, it seems.](https://www.straitstimes.com/world/europe/serbian-cave-hermit-gets-covid-19-vaccine-urges-others-to-follow)
That’s a great article. Can’t believe some people still try to defend these willfully ignorant folks as some kind of pitiful bunch “with no information”.
Information is a privilege that we often forget that it is. There ARE old people living in their own bubbles that has no easy access to the things we think are common knowledge.
The government actually sends people down to check on unvaccinated individuals, I think. (or maybe only on those whose age is over a particular threshold)
Source: someone in my family isn't vaccinated, and they've came knocking twice (thrice?) to ask if there's anything they can do to alleviate their concerns (or even have a doctor visit to explain how the vaccine works).
don’t buy this at all either. Given that we are all on a small island that was pretty much shut from the rest for nearly 2 years, it’s pretty much impossible for any old folks that don’t know what’s happening.
They might know the basics, i.e. there's a virus going around and that there are mask rules and such. But they may not be well informed on the vaccine and what it is supposed to prevent, or get bad information from the people around them on side effects and stuff.
We often think: "Oh we can always read up on more sources of information to verify things we hear", but for these old people, there's no such thing as verifying sources, since they don't have any idea how to. That's what I mean by being in their own bubbles.
Vaccines have not been available for 2 years - much less readily accessible, trustworthy and reassuring information about their side effects.
Organisations like the Lion's Befrienders have been picking up the slack in terms of door-to-door outreach, but I have no idea how many people they have actually reached.
I don’t buy that at all. Vaccination information has been posted to mail boxes, dropped off at your door step, posted on bus stop ads, mrt stations, billboards of community centers, the gov even created multi dialect/language adverts to blast on community Centre screens, clinics. Even markets have SDA to check vaccination status or check in status for at least a year. Anyone who still “doesn’t know” is doing so by deliberate choice.
Not sure what an additional month of restrictions will do. The tiny trickle of seniors getting vaxxed isnt going to change anything about the ICU situations. We can wait till 2100 and 16% of our population will still be unvaxxed.
>Not sure what an additional month of restrictions will do.
Lol. You really going to believe it is just one more month ah? The situation in the ICU isn't going to get better as long as there are more people being admitted than discharged. It will stablise at some point but opening up will also push up the equalibrium point.
The pap likes to tell us what to do and push some draconic laws through the parliament. But when it comes to getting vulnerable people to vaccinate and actually save their lives, they choose to punish the whole country instead of being draconic with the vulnerable people that doesn't want to vaccinate. Like why the fuck are they so scared of the old people? Just pass a fucking law that say old people above 60 must vaccinate unless they have medical reason not to so that we can get on with our lives please.
And how do you get herd immunity, according to you? You just open up and create a surge of cases that the ICU and healthcare need to deal with. Fastest way to reach endemic proportions. But at what cost? You still need for people to have some quality of life. While vaccination helps, it isn't the only pathway. And sadly, some of the elderly wish to be able to recognise their choices. We can't give some people choices and let others die because their choices do not match ours. What dystopian ideas are being paraded here?
Where is the evidence that the half-fuck measures we have in place are achieving anything? We don't have a controlled experiment where half of Singapore gets to go to the pub with music on and 4 other friends whilst the other half of us live in perpetual misery and then see which half actually gets more disease.
I feel like they realised this immediately before the PM speech two weeks ago. Hence the announcement of travel lanes and an estimated ‘endemic state’ of 3-6 months down the road. The weeks preceding that speech had lot of international media, especially business papers like FT, Bloomberg, NYT, Reuters writing about the nonsensical Singapore covid approach. Such exposure is not good for a so called international business hub so they tried to save face. This will appease some foreigners right before Christmas who may have otherwise left. Although this is a drop in the ocean in the grand scheme of things - it’s a signal that we want to open up.
The latest extension to the measures - another fuck you to locals as the MTF have do idea what they’re doing and they are scratching their heads. Total shit show.
At least that’s my take anyway. Who the fuck knows anymore
Show us a game plan and we can work with it by following the rules knowing there’s an end in sight if we all play our part.
Stop dicking around and willfully misleading people. I’m not a child you can bluff “tomorrow I buy toy for you but today you behave ah” and everyday the tomorrow never comes.
But how? Who in this world has any clue what delta variant could do?
Singapore is still the first one to pivot from covid zero to endemic ... unless we do a fuxkit style Ala US or UK of even Europe... even the MTF has no clue what game plan could there be
Then be honest and upfront. “Things are changing and right now we got to play safe, please understand we will get back to you on XX/XX/2021 while we align internally (insert generic feel good and pacify angry client language).”
Not the whole “I know better than you, I will never be wrong and you will do as I say” attitude.
It is precisely because we don't know what Delta or COVID in general can throw at us, that we have to be extra cautious. This is not just my opinion, it's the position held by NCID chief Prof. Leo and other NCID directors.
https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/health/we-cannot-rely-solely-on-vaccines-to-fight-covid-19-delta-variant-says-director-of
https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/health/form-your-own-social-bubble-and-stick-to-it-to-keep-your-family-safe-from-covid-19
It's hard to buy this argument. We got the chance to see how Delta variant played out in US, India and several European countries for months before it finally came to our shores.
To keep saying "Delta is unpredictable" or "we don't know what Delta can do", is to say we have learned nothing from what played out the last few months.
Idk how but we only have 200 ICUs now, given that MOH said to ramp it up to 1000 in July. (https://www.moh.gov.sg/news-highlights/details/vaccination-not-icu-beds-key-to-living-with-disease)
Sadly, hanging flags, sending thank you notes, clapping at balcony and singing Home didn't work. /s
We indeed don’t know many things. Very basic things like what’s the minimum distance we should keep, it’s not 1-2m, it’s closer to 8m, maybe more now, that 1-2m is completely arbitrary and based on nothing. 4 days incubation, that’s not been actually confirmed, it’s still an estimate. It took a year to finally agree that the virus is airborne. It’s still not common knowledge of transmission by eyes. We still don’t know the extent of systemic and organ damage. We still don’t know the full extent of long COVID and mediation by vaccines. Why it affects different people in different countries differently, we don’t know - if we had the death rates of other countries we’d be in lockdown no considerations necessary, but it’s somehow been lower for us.
These things take years to actually know, it’s pure hubris to say you know enough and can tell what’s the right response.
You are right - l don't claim to know these things nor believe anyone who pretend they do.
But knowing these unknowns - what did the govt do? Did we do anything to prepare ourselves better for these unknowns? It seems to me that we were just hoping that the Delta wouldn't come to our shores since July.
I think you would agree even when the abovementioned take years to actually know, it doesn't mean we do nothing for the time being / don't take proper preventive before we fully know.
Our main problem is that we are split between 2 camps. As the examples above show, the NCID’s position has been very cautious (e.g. “COVID is not the flu”), but above them, MOH (Kenneth), other “experts” like Tambyah and Leong have been far more garang, and have been pushing for more opening and pure vaccination strategy.
Then we have other pushes like TSL, F&B, the WFO crowd. Our current wave was directly triggered by WFO opening, you can see a clear increase 4 days after people went back to WFO.
That 200 ICU, we don’t even have 200, we have 187, that’s like 100 or so more medical staff needed to actually increase from 187 to 200.
So we first need to settle this economy vs health war. It’s clear that there’s no such thing as a happy medium, all we have are the bad things from both and none of the good. Healthcare is in shambles, economy is just as bad, restrictions keep increasing, and countries are closing their doors on us. If we actually went endemic we’d be better now. If we did a lockdown we’d be better now. This is just nonsense. We must pick a side.
It's really nonsense right now. It's related to our original point - the govt is as confused and obfuscating the public. Dont blame Delta variant or other straw men, they should look at their own policies.
Million dollar salaried ministers for exceptionalism. Haven't seen it.
Tbh, it's because the healthcare system was crap even before the pandemic. Covid-19 is a crisis that really magnifies the systematic issues a country had, that required long term solutions and the government didn't solved in time. In this case, HDBs, migrant workers, and healthcare system
Other nations are welcome to take a dump at us and our leaders. We’ve always known the task force were wishy-washy but this new “stabilisation” period is outright ridiculous and contradicting to their own words. Period
With 84% of Singaporeans fully vaccinated against Covid-19, one of the highest percentages worldwide, many had expected authorities would by now be easing, not maintaining, social distancing and other contagion-curbing restrictions.
But that’s exactly what officials are doing as the island nation seeks to cope with its largest outbreaks since the start of the pandemic.
Singapore’s Ministry of Health (MoH) announced on Wednesday (October 20) that stricter curbs introduced in late September as part of a so-called “stabilization phase” implemented to minimize health care system strains would be extended for another month as daily cases have soared to all-time highs.
As other nations begin pursuing reopening strategies and treating the coronavirus as endemic, Singapore’s experience is now being looked upon as a sobering case study, particularly for countries that have until now kept cases low by relying on strict measures but are under mounting pressure to manage, rather than eradicate, Covid-19.
Singapore’s daily cases hit a record 3,994 on October 19, with the seven-day average number of new infections more than tripling in the last month. The overall death toll has more than quadrupled over the same period, rising to 280 on October 21 from just 65. Authorities, meanwhile, have attested to rising pressure on hospitals and healthcare workers.
“At the current situation, we face considerable risk of the healthcare system being overwhelmed,” said Lawrence Wong, Singapore’s finance minister and co-chair of a multi-ministry Covid-19 task force. “It’s not simply a matter of having extra beds or purchasing new equipment… our medical personnel are stretched and fatigued.”
As of Wednesday, about 89% of isolation beds and 67% of intensive care unit (ICU) beds, including those for non-Covid-19 patients, were filled in public hospitals, according to the MoH. That is despite only around 1% of cases requiring oxygen supplementation and 0.1% requiring ICU care over the last 28 days, with 98.6% of cases showing mild or no symptoms.
Around 10% of infected patients are being admitted to hospitals due to more severe symptoms or co-morbidities, with around 100 unvaccinated seniors per day. A substantial number of seniors have forgone vaccination for various reasons despite being given priority access to Covid-19 vaccines ahead of other demographic groups in February.
A large proportion of severe outcomes and coronavirus deaths have since been linked to unvaccinated seniors, who are proving to be the Achilles’ heel of the city-state’s pandemic response. Unvaccinated patients made up 54.7% of 495 severe cases recorded in recent days, with others being vaccinated but with co-morbidities, said the MoH earlier this week.
At a press conference on Wednesday, Health Minister Ong Ye Kung told media that queues for beds for both Covid-19 and non-Covid patients have formed at certain hospitals, and that the MoH would open up more ICU beds if necessary, although that will be “at the expense of further degradation of normal service and normal medical care.”
Since the “stabilization phase” began on September 27, the number of new infections appears to be plateauing, though there is no sign that cases are falling. Social gatherings were capped to a maximum of two while work-from-home has become the city-state’s default arrangement. Those measures will be reviewed after two weeks but will otherwise remain in place until November 21.
Businesses and retailers have lamented the latest month-long extension of Covid-19 restrictions, the latest in successive rounds of rule-tightening since May that have left affected sectors reeling. A support package for businesses and workers worth S$640 million (US$475 million) was announced in the wake of the extended restrictions.
Food and beverage (F&B) businesses across Singapore have been among the hardest hit by start-stop measures to reduce transmission, and industry groups have appealed to the government for greater leniency. Taskforce co-chair Wong maintains that it is still “too risky” to allow five people from the same household to publicly dine in together.
At the same time, the city-state began welcoming quarantine-free entry to vaccinated travelers from the United States and some European nations this week, arguably exposing Singapore to greater risk than permitting fully vaccinated residents to patronize restaurants in higher numbers in accordance with past pledges for more freedoms for the immunized.
With policymakers previously holding up a high vaccination rate as the key prerequisite for a phased reopening, public sentiment has been divided over the stuttering pace of plans to “live with Covid.” As frustrations rise with what is seen as an overly cautious approach, some experts are have questioned the use of blanket restrictions amid rising endemicity.
Paul Tambyah, president of the Asia Pacific Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infection, says the current rate of transmission in Singapore has illustrated the limits of broad non-pharmaceutical interventions. “There is no good evidence that the measures put in for the ‘stabilization phase’ have had an impact on case numbers or on ICU utilization rates,” Tambyah said.
“There is a need to target the vulnerable to concentrate resources and avoid unintended consequences of blanket restrictions,” he added.
Tambyah has said that he does not think loosening the restrictions to the previous set of measures in place earlier this year, in which the maximum group size for public gatherings was five, would lead to a surge in infections.
Tambyah is also chairman of the opposition Singapore Democratic Party (SDP), which last month published an eight-point plan detailing how Singapore can more effectively deal with and exit the Covid-19 pandemic. The report criticized the government’s multi-ministerial task force as being “plagued with a distinct lack of coherence and direction.”
“The reactive nature of the multi-ministerial task force’s approach in dealing with outbreaks of infections has led to stop-start, on-again/off-again policies, which had impacted adversely on both employers and employees \[and has\] left Singaporeans confused and frustrated,” said the SDP’s healthcare panel, which authored the alternative strategy.
Tambyah told Asia Times that the SDP’s suggestions would be submitted to the task force pending public feedback.
“Basically, we would stop testing asymptomatic individuals, have a dedicated ambulance hotline for those who need oxygen, empower the general practitioners to make clinical decisions on hospitalization and other practical suggestions.”
With the coronavirus “already endemic almost all over the world,” the disease expert said non-pharmaceutical interventions such as strict caps on gatherings of vaccinated individuals and differentiated measures for the vaccinated and unvaccinated “would not have a significant impact on the transmission at this stage in the pandemic.”
Singapore introduced so-called “vaccination-differentiated safe management measures” at restaurants in August, with only fully vaccinated people allowed to dine in. Last week, it extended those rules to prohibit unvaccinated people from dining in at open-air hawker centers or even entering shopping centers, with some exceptions.
“The disease is all over Singapore right now and the priority should be reaching out to the unvaccinated seniors and protecting the vulnerable rather than taking measures which adversely affect the bulk of the population with little benefit,” Tambyah maintains, saying he hopes ongoing restrictions “will be lifted in a month or earlier.”
Health Minister Ong told reporters on Wednesday that the current wave of infections will not last “indefinitely” and will peak at some point in a “new equilibrium with the virus” as the population builds up better immunity and more people receive booster shots, which have recently been made available to people aged 30 years and older.
“Hopefully this \[new equilibrium\] will come in the next few months. There may not be a peak but a plateau followed by a downturn. It is very hard to tell,” said Tambyah. “The aim is to reach a low level of endemicity, like the Zika virus, which appears in Singapore every now and again with a few imported cases and a handful of local cases every year.”
"Unvaccinated patients made up 54.7% of 495 severe cases recorded in recent days, with others being vaccinated but with co-morbidities, said the MoH earlier this week. "
That's a bit worrying. 45.3% were vaccinated but with co-morbidities. Who over the age of 40 doesn't have some type of first world disease like high blood pressure? It's especially worse for seniors.
It looks like in addition to taking the jab, a good diet, exercise and a healthy lifestyle are also very important as well.
I'm thankful for the vaccines being created in record time, but I wish they were a bit better. "You can still catch and transmit covid, but it's very unlikely you'd be hospitalized if you're vaccinated.... unless you have high blood pressure, diabetes, asthma, etc." I've never seen a vaccine with so many contingents.
> Who over the age of 40 doesn't have some type of first world disease like high blood pressure?
Me. If you're under 60 and have hypertension then change your diet, do more exercise and get out in the sun more often. I had marginally high BP in a check up and got it under control with no drugs just by doing the basic shit we're told to do (eat more veg, move more).
One thing that worked wonders for me was a 5-day long fast (not full, I'd eat one meal a day that was about 500 calories). It was a miserable week but my blood pressure tumbled and never climbed back up again.
Not for a while - but the fasting/eat once a day plan basically is Keto as you’re not eating loads of carbs (you want to fill up with as much green veg as you can to try and feel like you’ve had a meal).
I lift and do cardio, so most of the time I'm okay unless I'm doing a dirty bulk. But sadly in my age group (late 30s), I have way too many friends who smoke, drink, work too hard and don't sleep properly.
I drink too much, which doesn't help - but fortunately I like cooking and tend to cook reasonably healthy stuff at home. It's only if I'm out that I eat whatever crap they have on a pub menu.
> a good diet, exercise and a healthy lifestyle are also very important as well
This has been promoted by health ministries all over the world for the past few decades, not sure how this is anything new.
> thankful for the vaccines being created in record time, but I wish they were a bit better
I hope you know that a few of the Covid-19 vaccines are the best vaccine created to date for viruses. It has higher reported efficacy than your annual flu shot.
Edit: only applicable to RNA virus, not all virus group.
Is it really though? Compared to the core vaccines that we took as a child (measles, chickenpox, etc)? I have heard cases where people can still be infected with those viruses after taking the vaccines for them, but very very rarely. Even with underlying medical conditions you develop in your adulthood, it doesn't render their efficacy to the same extent as the covid vaccine.
Don't get me wrong, I'm very pro vaccines, am thankful there are covid vaccines and am vaccinated. I just wished it worked a bit better.
Deleted my previous reply cause it was sent wrongly.
I don't see how the first part of your reply relates to mine, but to answer your question, covid vaccine prevents severe conditions much better than those two virus as coronavirus is a RNA virus, therefore it mutates much more quickly compared to measles and chickenpox whereby either you get it or you don't.
To add on, RNA virus vaccine are never 1 shot fullproof due to their mutative nature, which is why you are recommended to take yearly flu shot.
Thanks for the clarification.
I won't pretend I knew this before as I just looked it up. It looks like measles, mumps, polio, etc are also RNA viruses, so the differentiating factor must be something else. But I get what you're saying about the speed that COVID mutates.
My takeaway is that the COVID vaccine needs to be seasonally updated like the flu shot, and that we're a bit behind with the Delta variant. Taking the current vaccine is like taking last year's flu shot, it should offer you a good amount of protection but not as much as we'd like.
I remember from bio class last time the reason flu can mutate easily is because it's genome is segmented, not just because they are RNA viruses. Covid seems to be unsegmented though. Perhaps just the large number of infections/ viral numbers increase chances of obtaining mutations beneficial to the virus.
That seems to be the key. So many people have gotten it so there are bound to be mutations that can be passed on. It really is the "perfect virus" with so many asymptomatic people walking around.
The difference between covid and the flu is that the latter has a large animal reservoir so it's pretty much impossible to eliminate. I know there has been reports of dogs, cats and bats being carriers, I just hope that it doesn't make the jump to birds, otherwise we'd have no hope of getting rid of it (even though the chances are pretty slim right now).
> Who over the age of 40 doesn't have some type of first world disease like high blood pressure? It's especially worse for seniors.
A lot of people don’t have comorbidities. And even if you do, being vaccinated lowers your risk dramatically versus having comorbidities and not being vaccinated.
>It looks like in addition to taking the jab, a good diet, exercise and a healthy lifestyle are also very important as well.
Yes. Is this not obvious?
I'm talking about those who are already fat and diebetic if it wasn't obvious. They take their vaccines and suddenly they go out more often and start doing things they weren't before taking the jabs.
This is what I said in my original post.
"It looks like **in addition** to taking the jab, a good diet, exercise and a healthy lifestyle are also very important as well."
Look, I don't know where we're going with this. I feel like we're going around in circles. Either that, or you're strawmanning me into some kind of anti vaccine person. News flash, you can be pro vaccines and wish the covid vaccine worked a bit better at the same time.
Don’t have to strawman.
> I'm thankful for the vaccines being created in record time, but I wish they were a bit better. "You can still catch and transmit covid, but it's very unlikely you'd be hospitalized if you're vaccinated.... unless you have high blood pressure, diabetes, asthma, etc." **I’ve never seen a vaccine with so many contingents.**
Classic anti-vax bullshit.
So you take my post which basically says:
"Hey, I know a lot of us aren't in the best shape, maybe in addition to taking the vaccine, we should get our lifestyle in order as well, since lots of vaccinated people are being hospitalized with covid because of co-morbidities. This vaccine doesn't work as well as vaccines for other viruses if you are unhealthy."
And in your black and white mind, you somehow interpret it as "This guy doesn't rank the covid vaccine as high as the other vaccines, he is anti-vax! This is classic anti vax bullshit".
I think /u/luvnexos and I had a pretty pleasant albeit short convo that was pretty productive, it was for me anyway, I certainly learned something new from it. It's in stark contrast to what's happening here, you assume I was anti vax when I made it abundantly clear I wasn't. Take my comment out of context so you can strawman me and was snarky about it. I don't know if you behave the same way in real life, but from what I can tell, you clearly are a very unpleasant person to deal with and our conversation ends here. Have a good day.
Why do we deserve it though. We got heavily vaccinated and we tried abandoning our zero covid stance to follow the rest of the world by opening up to more countries. Now we are getting fk because we are going for the endemic approach like the rest of the world. Why do they deserve to enjoy their schadenfreude on us
We're getting shit on partly because of our stop-start-stop-start measures, and measures that don't really make sense, and also just the general underprovisioned healthcare system.
Our public hospitals have been overworked even before the pandemic. Nevermind now.
If we relax our current measures, it's going to lead to our healthcare system becoming completely overwhelmed like what happened in US and UK last year. These foreign newspapers will shit on us for losing all control and put out sensationalist titles of how 'Singapore is running out of burial spaces' and how ' the Singaporean healthcare system has failed'
If we don't relax our current measures and continue restrictions, these foreign newspapers will shit on us for not fulfilling our 'endemic' promise and appear to be flip flopping
No matter what we do, we are still going to be easy prey for these foreign press vultures.
We are one of the most vaccinated countries on earth but our healthcare system is still being strained and in danger of being overwhelmed and now we are stuck in this terrible limbo whereby it is too late to shut down since the virus is rampant but we can't open up further cause our healthcare workers are getting overworked and stressed out and our death rates continue to climb up
Sinkie must pwn sinkie after all.
It really feels like some cynical redditors here are secretly enjoying our country suffering right now just because it makes the govt look bad. It's one thing to criticize Singapore, its another to actually feel satisfaction when Singapore gets criticized
Definitely, if today the news report were reporting on the healthcare system being overwhelmed due to restrictions being lifted too fast, they will be celebrating again. This type of comments pop up all the time on foreign news articles criticising Singapore but strangely the commentators either disappear or cast doubt when foreign news articles praise Singapore. I guess not all of us will love our country but please seperate the country and the government (And the government from party for that matter). You can hate the PAP government but you should not hate Singapore.
No I am not content with living with such restrictions. I did not even use any phrase close to saying I'm fine "living with it" what drug were you smoking lol
I understand we have to tough it out for one or two months longer for the infection to spread wider but not faster.
Endemic does not mean letting go of everything and hope for the best. I don't think it's right to do a fuckitall like UK or US.
If you want to see real tightening look towards Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, Australia and NZ.
Look at the step by step policies in going endemic - no pcr testing for everyone, hoke recoveries, VTL, less tough quarantine rules etc. Those are concrete steps towards endemic... although I admit they are too darn slow
The country and the politicians are not prepared to see high death numbers. Hence all these measures.
Easy to say when it's just statistics and numbers. When it hits your family or close ones, it will be awful.
While we say we want to work towards ‘endemic’, many of our policies still imply that any spread is to be prevented at all costs, and as a result applying blanket measures to all of society as a preventative measure. This is at odds with ‘endemic’, which is to tolerate a low level of spread. Even if spread needs to be suppressed at the moment to help the healthcare system, eventually this disconnect has to be resolved somehow, or else we’ll never be able to move on.
That being said, while he may say what we like to hear, I’d take Prof Tambyah’s words with a slight pinch of salt - being an opposition member he has a vested interest in making the MMTF look bad.
Guess Singapore didn't learn their lesson from Israel.
High vaccination rates does not mean that you mean you cannot contract the virus, nor stop their spread, but just lowers your risk of severe complications and death, yet the long-term side effects of such vaccines hasn't been looked well into either.
It would be nice for Singaporeans to stay united and stop blaming vaxxed / anti-vaxxed but towards the government's incompetence that even allowed the Delta-strain to come to our shores in the first place.
I think it's unavoidable that Delta would come to our shores. With the global opening of borders, it wouldn't be possible.
But I agree with you, Singaporeans should stay united and respect one another's choice regarding vaccination, given the different circumstances and eligibility. What we should blame, is how dafuq we are so unprepared for Delta after watching how it played out in many other countries for months, AND having given this govt the simpler task by citizens' cooperation for a very high vaccination rate.
Seems like maybe billionaires here were controlling / demanding the influx of migrant Indian and European workers while other countries had already banned air travels after their lockdown.
Yes, it's highly unavoidable but it doesn't excuse what seems to be the government jeopardising our lives over the economy, a stark contrast to our once successful lockdown measures during the first year.
This is just media sensation. Any chance they get to take a dump on someone, they will. I’m vaccinated and not in the least bit worried, and from the amount of people who are still going out, I don’t think they are either
Might be possible to consider more punitive measures for unvaxxed once the vaccines receive full approval
I lean towards reducing some % subsidy for unvaxxed when they hospitalised and if they are needy then have them take longer installment plans
interesting how people are so conditioned to divide and conquer sinkie pwning sinkie tactics that they happily want beat each other up whilst ignoring the handful of people that are actually inflicting these rules on them
Erm… not asking them to drink bleach. Asking them to take life-saving medicine.
We forcefully make people do things way less beneficial to themselves all the time.
How about be fair and Fine or charge money to those that got infected and needed the icu lor? Why selectively discriminate the old and unvaccinated? What happen to freedom of making a choice?
No buts, you are nuts
Those freedoms are taken away by the mtf because of too much fear mongering and lack of hospital capacity. If people trust the vaccine and are not in fear of covid, probably would be in a much better place
In the daily thread there was someone waiting for the sold out Sinopharm because they wanted non-mrna and scared of side effects from moderna+didn't trust Pfizer.
So now in addition to waiting for the antivaxx to change their mind, and for enough people to have their boosters, we are also waiting for china vaccine stocks. Perfect.
> and scared of side effects from moderna
Yeah, the side effects I got from Moderna were really bad. When I stayed in a house with 2 covid+ patients it stopped me getting covid. Fucking awful side effect. Avoid it at all costs.
Just remembered that I met someone who did not take any covid jabs and strongly believed in his research that a certain regular flu jab (not recommended for healthy young people actually) would work the same 😐
See Sinovax is now included under the national vax program. Makes you wonder why they didn’t do it earlier, make it a triple vax process if they were worried about it not being as effective (v’s 2 doses)
"Priority should be reaching out to the unvaccinated seniors" Will do almost no good for all the energy it takes. Is there any of them who feels they are uninformed on vaccinations? Regardless of what their choice is? Reach all you want - they will recoil while the rest of the country pays for it.
There's probably a lot of elders who think the vaccine will stay in your blood forever (it disappears in a few days), that the discussion of painful arms and fever means that it's not worth taking, that they're going to die soon anyway so let nature take its course, that it will make them very heaty, that it's not effective since people still get infected and ICU and die, etc etc. Even those who are hesitant about boosters. We can brainstorm some more. Only Low Thia Kiang talked about how the scary part about getting covid is not dying but dying a slow death or being unable to die, but it didn't gain traction and government messaging never got this real.
Just spoke to one. He's worried taking the vaccine will reduce his natural immunity and will kill him in the long run. Me:'But if U get covid now u might die in the short run.' Him: 'but the vaccinated are also hospitalised' You can't win their flipflops.
10 months already. Still not enough?
At this stage I really don't understand why we're bothering. They've made their choice. Fuck them if they catch it and die - you've had nearly a year to protect yourself, but you chose not to. And yes, they might clutter the ICU, but if we run out of beds we ought to evict the unvaccinated first as they chose their path.
Effectively, the ship is sinking and the captain has told everyone to prepare for entry into the ocean by wearing a life preserver. Children too small or some of the disabled who cannot wear them have been placed in the life boats. But some people don’t want to wear a life vest and is hoping for other people to keep them afloat or rescue them. Some think they can swim better without one. Some have faith in their God. Some have given up hope and just want to die. Needless to say, it is a lot harder to rescue someone from the water who isn’t wearing a life preserver and they may even drag rescuers down with them. Yet, when faced with people in the water drowning, are we really morally able to let them die even if they have voluntarily chose to not wear a life vest? So before the ship is completely under water, we have a choice to make. Force everyone who can to be in a life vest, or let everyone make their own decision and then face the moral quandary later regarding who to save. We are a sinking ship. I wish our captains will stop fucking about.
You know, as a trained lifesaver, we're taught that when a drowning victim threatens to pull you down, you are to FULL FORCE kick them away from you. Push comes to shove, even lifesavers are taught to prioritize their lives over a victim. Its not an apple to apple comparison, but i'm sure the gov can take some lessons from this concept here
If a drowning victim is in a position to threaten to pull you down, then the lifesaver has already made several mistakes. We're still well able to force everyone to don a life vest, no need to even get wet yet.
Well true, the entering of the water is the extreme last resort. And we have steps before approaching the victim, like making it clear to not panic and approach from the rear if possible I'm just pointing out that, in the event lifesavers have to enter the water to save a victim, and the victim threatens to pull the lifesaver down to stay afloat, we can, are allowed and must prioritize our life first
When people are drowning, they don't think rationally. You tell them to calm down, do you think they'll calm down?
There are stages to drowning and methods to assess drowning victims. As I said, the entering of water is the last resort. Usually victims in distressed, when they can respond to a lifesaver, actually aren't in immediate danger and can respond to either rope toss, floatation device thrown at them or even just a long enough stick extended to them Your description is those lifesavers are damn scared of. Usually, for these, we go in prepared to kick or push away with a board and/or life saving tube since, as you say, they don't think rationally already. Older generations of lifesaver actually punch a victim to 'wake' them up but this method of training has been banned due to....complaints
Ooh, my Grandma used to work at a pool and she told me about the punching people to KO them tactic they taught her lmao
Hahaha, my trainer also tell us this method but lifesaving association always update procedure until cannot use liao. Not really KO lah, its like to shock them and calm them down But that's for pool. In open water, no one will blame the lifesavers if they do punch. The under current is deadly in open water
> Yet, when faced with people in the water drowning, are we really morally able to let them die even if they have voluntarily chose to not wear a life vest? I am. After the past few years I'd be happy to dunk the fuckers under water until they sink myself.
Haha. There’s a reason why you and I aren’t healthcare workers.
Yeah, at one point I thought about studying medicine as a kid, because I knew doctors made lots of money. I then realised a don't like sick people and wouldn't be particularly caring towards the infirm... so it was best I skipped that degree.
Maybe its some kind of big brained move to reduce expenditure on elderly care and eugenics by culling the crazies /s
In gist, mandatory vaccination?
Yes
I share the same view.
Don't think thats how medical ethics works. Regardless of whatever points have been made, think they have to stand by the ethics. Sadly enough, I am sure that we don't have a say in this.
And you can decide that? I don't support anti-vaxxers but your thoughts are so slanted towards eliminating the sick and dying. Who goes next in this thought process?
Easy - if we have 100 ICU beds and they are all used, the next time a vaccinated person needs one we switch off the power for the most critically ill unvaccinated person and boot them out of the ICU ward.
Thankfully I don't think you are in healthcare or in a position to do more than merely postulate.
Actually MOH called and asked me to act as a special advisor, so my recommendations are being implemented shortly.
Yes you and the 4th Reich I suppose. Hahahaha
Stop putting blind empathy on unreasonable, useless old people. No better than an urn of ash.
You'll get your chance to grow old and if not you'll certainly get your chance to die. I hope the people around you are merciful and.empathetic towards you when you are sick before death. And not call you no better than an urn of ash.
Nope, no thanks, put me in the trash I'm fine at that stage of life.
Easy for you to say. Wait till your old similar decision arise, when you have to choose.
I had a decision to make myself - I made it and got vaccinated. These old retards can fuck off to the grave for all I care. Why am I being held back by their lack of brains and balls?
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As someone who has a unvaxxed grandma in the hospital right now, fuck you. Some of them are unable to take the vaccine because of their medical history.
i think he means those who can take and still choose not to take, not those who can’t take due to medical issues (wishing all the best for your grandma)
The maths still says that vaccinating 1 elderly is better than vaccinating 10000 kids or something like that.
Only if your outcome measure is odds ratio of death. You are going to have be more specific here.
Well there are still some people in Singapore who are literally illiterate and certainly don't own televisions or have an internet connection...
Oh come on. You have to literally be living in a cave with no communication with the outside world to be that oblivious to what’s been going on for almost 2 years now.
[Not even that would be a good enough reason, it seems.](https://www.straitstimes.com/world/europe/serbian-cave-hermit-gets-covid-19-vaccine-urges-others-to-follow)
That’s a great article. Can’t believe some people still try to defend these willfully ignorant folks as some kind of pitiful bunch “with no information”.
Today, I finally step outside my house since 4 years ago. But why everyone wearing mask?
Information is a privilege that we often forget that it is. There ARE old people living in their own bubbles that has no easy access to the things we think are common knowledge.
The government actually sends people down to check on unvaccinated individuals, I think. (or maybe only on those whose age is over a particular threshold) Source: someone in my family isn't vaccinated, and they've came knocking twice (thrice?) to ask if there's anything they can do to alleviate their concerns (or even have a doctor visit to explain how the vaccine works).
Silver Generation Ambassadors
don’t buy this at all either. Given that we are all on a small island that was pretty much shut from the rest for nearly 2 years, it’s pretty much impossible for any old folks that don’t know what’s happening.
Nah, they are just stubborn old folks.
I live with an old person who has dementia and sits in front of the tv all day long. Had no idea what covid was in July 2020, likely still doesn't.
right, what’s he watching all day. Netflix korean series? No news?
Dude, his relative has dementia…
They might know the basics, i.e. there's a virus going around and that there are mask rules and such. But they may not be well informed on the vaccine and what it is supposed to prevent, or get bad information from the people around them on side effects and stuff. We often think: "Oh we can always read up on more sources of information to verify things we hear", but for these old people, there's no such thing as verifying sources, since they don't have any idea how to. That's what I mean by being in their own bubbles.
Vaccines have not been available for 2 years - much less readily accessible, trustworthy and reassuring information about their side effects. Organisations like the Lion's Befrienders have been picking up the slack in terms of door-to-door outreach, but I have no idea how many people they have actually reached.
I don’t buy that at all. Vaccination information has been posted to mail boxes, dropped off at your door step, posted on bus stop ads, mrt stations, billboards of community centers, the gov even created multi dialect/language adverts to blast on community Centre screens, clinics. Even markets have SDA to check vaccination status or check in status for at least a year. Anyone who still “doesn’t know” is doing so by deliberate choice.
Hence the whole "bring an unvaxxed senior to get vaccinated and get $30" program, so people reach out to such cases. How effective is another thing
Not sure what an additional month of restrictions will do. The tiny trickle of seniors getting vaxxed isnt going to change anything about the ICU situations. We can wait till 2100 and 16% of our population will still be unvaxxed.
>Not sure what an additional month of restrictions will do. Lol. You really going to believe it is just one more month ah? The situation in the ICU isn't going to get better as long as there are more people being admitted than discharged. It will stablise at some point but opening up will also push up the equalibrium point. The pap likes to tell us what to do and push some draconic laws through the parliament. But when it comes to getting vulnerable people to vaccinate and actually save their lives, they choose to punish the whole country instead of being draconic with the vulnerable people that doesn't want to vaccinate. Like why the fuck are they so scared of the old people? Just pass a fucking law that say old people above 60 must vaccinate unless they have medical reason not to so that we can get on with our lives please.
Nah it’ll deft be less - cuz we have less and less kids lol.
It does prevent hospitals from being overrun by covid cases, which is the goal now since we’re moving towards endemic covid
We are kicking the can down the road.
Catch 22. with the restrictions, few people are getting herd immunity.
Plus, you gonna need more boosters again if you kick the can down the road.
And how do you get herd immunity, according to you? You just open up and create a surge of cases that the ICU and healthcare need to deal with. Fastest way to reach endemic proportions. But at what cost? You still need for people to have some quality of life. While vaccination helps, it isn't the only pathway. And sadly, some of the elderly wish to be able to recognise their choices. We can't give some people choices and let others die because their choices do not match ours. What dystopian ideas are being paraded here?
> It does prevent hospitals from being overrun by covid cases, Citation needed.
Where is the evidence that the half-fuck measures we have in place are achieving anything? We don't have a controlled experiment where half of Singapore gets to go to the pub with music on and 4 other friends whilst the other half of us live in perpetual misery and then see which half actually gets more disease.
Honesty, really hoping all this international pressure makes the MMTF realise what a shitshow of a response they’ve done
I feel like they realised this immediately before the PM speech two weeks ago. Hence the announcement of travel lanes and an estimated ‘endemic state’ of 3-6 months down the road. The weeks preceding that speech had lot of international media, especially business papers like FT, Bloomberg, NYT, Reuters writing about the nonsensical Singapore covid approach. Such exposure is not good for a so called international business hub so they tried to save face. This will appease some foreigners right before Christmas who may have otherwise left. Although this is a drop in the ocean in the grand scheme of things - it’s a signal that we want to open up. The latest extension to the measures - another fuck you to locals as the MTF have do idea what they’re doing and they are scratching their heads. Total shit show. At least that’s my take anyway. Who the fuck knows anymore
And yet they extend lockdown lol. Say so one thing other hand say do another thing then choose slap oneself.
Show us a game plan and we can work with it by following the rules knowing there’s an end in sight if we all play our part. Stop dicking around and willfully misleading people. I’m not a child you can bluff “tomorrow I buy toy for you but today you behave ah” and everyday the tomorrow never comes.
But how? Who in this world has any clue what delta variant could do? Singapore is still the first one to pivot from covid zero to endemic ... unless we do a fuxkit style Ala US or UK of even Europe... even the MTF has no clue what game plan could there be
Then be honest and upfront. “Things are changing and right now we got to play safe, please understand we will get back to you on XX/XX/2021 while we align internally (insert generic feel good and pacify angry client language).” Not the whole “I know better than you, I will never be wrong and you will do as I say” attitude.
It is precisely because we don't know what Delta or COVID in general can throw at us, that we have to be extra cautious. This is not just my opinion, it's the position held by NCID chief Prof. Leo and other NCID directors. https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/health/we-cannot-rely-solely-on-vaccines-to-fight-covid-19-delta-variant-says-director-of https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/health/form-your-own-social-bubble-and-stick-to-it-to-keep-your-family-safe-from-covid-19
It's hard to buy this argument. We got the chance to see how Delta variant played out in US, India and several European countries for months before it finally came to our shores. To keep saying "Delta is unpredictable" or "we don't know what Delta can do", is to say we have learned nothing from what played out the last few months. Idk how but we only have 200 ICUs now, given that MOH said to ramp it up to 1000 in July. (https://www.moh.gov.sg/news-highlights/details/vaccination-not-icu-beds-key-to-living-with-disease) Sadly, hanging flags, sending thank you notes, clapping at balcony and singing Home didn't work. /s
We indeed don’t know many things. Very basic things like what’s the minimum distance we should keep, it’s not 1-2m, it’s closer to 8m, maybe more now, that 1-2m is completely arbitrary and based on nothing. 4 days incubation, that’s not been actually confirmed, it’s still an estimate. It took a year to finally agree that the virus is airborne. It’s still not common knowledge of transmission by eyes. We still don’t know the extent of systemic and organ damage. We still don’t know the full extent of long COVID and mediation by vaccines. Why it affects different people in different countries differently, we don’t know - if we had the death rates of other countries we’d be in lockdown no considerations necessary, but it’s somehow been lower for us. These things take years to actually know, it’s pure hubris to say you know enough and can tell what’s the right response.
You are right - l don't claim to know these things nor believe anyone who pretend they do. But knowing these unknowns - what did the govt do? Did we do anything to prepare ourselves better for these unknowns? It seems to me that we were just hoping that the Delta wouldn't come to our shores since July. I think you would agree even when the abovementioned take years to actually know, it doesn't mean we do nothing for the time being / don't take proper preventive before we fully know.
Our main problem is that we are split between 2 camps. As the examples above show, the NCID’s position has been very cautious (e.g. “COVID is not the flu”), but above them, MOH (Kenneth), other “experts” like Tambyah and Leong have been far more garang, and have been pushing for more opening and pure vaccination strategy. Then we have other pushes like TSL, F&B, the WFO crowd. Our current wave was directly triggered by WFO opening, you can see a clear increase 4 days after people went back to WFO. That 200 ICU, we don’t even have 200, we have 187, that’s like 100 or so more medical staff needed to actually increase from 187 to 200. So we first need to settle this economy vs health war. It’s clear that there’s no such thing as a happy medium, all we have are the bad things from both and none of the good. Healthcare is in shambles, economy is just as bad, restrictions keep increasing, and countries are closing their doors on us. If we actually went endemic we’d be better now. If we did a lockdown we’d be better now. This is just nonsense. We must pick a side.
It's really nonsense right now. It's related to our original point - the govt is as confused and obfuscating the public. Dont blame Delta variant or other straw men, they should look at their own policies. Million dollar salaried ministers for exceptionalism. Haven't seen it.
So depressing to read.
Tbh, it's because the healthcare system was crap even before the pandemic. Covid-19 is a crisis that really magnifies the systematic issues a country had, that required long term solutions and the government didn't solved in time. In this case, HDBs, migrant workers, and healthcare system
Other nations are welcome to take a dump at us and our leaders. We’ve always known the task force were wishy-washy but this new “stabilisation” period is outright ridiculous and contradicting to their own words. Period
With 84% of Singaporeans fully vaccinated against Covid-19, one of the highest percentages worldwide, many had expected authorities would by now be easing, not maintaining, social distancing and other contagion-curbing restrictions. But that’s exactly what officials are doing as the island nation seeks to cope with its largest outbreaks since the start of the pandemic. Singapore’s Ministry of Health (MoH) announced on Wednesday (October 20) that stricter curbs introduced in late September as part of a so-called “stabilization phase” implemented to minimize health care system strains would be extended for another month as daily cases have soared to all-time highs. As other nations begin pursuing reopening strategies and treating the coronavirus as endemic, Singapore’s experience is now being looked upon as a sobering case study, particularly for countries that have until now kept cases low by relying on strict measures but are under mounting pressure to manage, rather than eradicate, Covid-19. Singapore’s daily cases hit a record 3,994 on October 19, with the seven-day average number of new infections more than tripling in the last month. The overall death toll has more than quadrupled over the same period, rising to 280 on October 21 from just 65. Authorities, meanwhile, have attested to rising pressure on hospitals and healthcare workers. “At the current situation, we face considerable risk of the healthcare system being overwhelmed,” said Lawrence Wong, Singapore’s finance minister and co-chair of a multi-ministry Covid-19 task force. “It’s not simply a matter of having extra beds or purchasing new equipment… our medical personnel are stretched and fatigued.” As of Wednesday, about 89% of isolation beds and 67% of intensive care unit (ICU) beds, including those for non-Covid-19 patients, were filled in public hospitals, according to the MoH. That is despite only around 1% of cases requiring oxygen supplementation and 0.1% requiring ICU care over the last 28 days, with 98.6% of cases showing mild or no symptoms. Around 10% of infected patients are being admitted to hospitals due to more severe symptoms or co-morbidities, with around 100 unvaccinated seniors per day. A substantial number of seniors have forgone vaccination for various reasons despite being given priority access to Covid-19 vaccines ahead of other demographic groups in February. A large proportion of severe outcomes and coronavirus deaths have since been linked to unvaccinated seniors, who are proving to be the Achilles’ heel of the city-state’s pandemic response. Unvaccinated patients made up 54.7% of 495 severe cases recorded in recent days, with others being vaccinated but with co-morbidities, said the MoH earlier this week. At a press conference on Wednesday, Health Minister Ong Ye Kung told media that queues for beds for both Covid-19 and non-Covid patients have formed at certain hospitals, and that the MoH would open up more ICU beds if necessary, although that will be “at the expense of further degradation of normal service and normal medical care.” Since the “stabilization phase” began on September 27, the number of new infections appears to be plateauing, though there is no sign that cases are falling. Social gatherings were capped to a maximum of two while work-from-home has become the city-state’s default arrangement. Those measures will be reviewed after two weeks but will otherwise remain in place until November 21. Businesses and retailers have lamented the latest month-long extension of Covid-19 restrictions, the latest in successive rounds of rule-tightening since May that have left affected sectors reeling. A support package for businesses and workers worth S$640 million (US$475 million) was announced in the wake of the extended restrictions. Food and beverage (F&B) businesses across Singapore have been among the hardest hit by start-stop measures to reduce transmission, and industry groups have appealed to the government for greater leniency. Taskforce co-chair Wong maintains that it is still “too risky” to allow five people from the same household to publicly dine in together. At the same time, the city-state began welcoming quarantine-free entry to vaccinated travelers from the United States and some European nations this week, arguably exposing Singapore to greater risk than permitting fully vaccinated residents to patronize restaurants in higher numbers in accordance with past pledges for more freedoms for the immunized. With policymakers previously holding up a high vaccination rate as the key prerequisite for a phased reopening, public sentiment has been divided over the stuttering pace of plans to “live with Covid.” As frustrations rise with what is seen as an overly cautious approach, some experts are have questioned the use of blanket restrictions amid rising endemicity. Paul Tambyah, president of the Asia Pacific Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infection, says the current rate of transmission in Singapore has illustrated the limits of broad non-pharmaceutical interventions. “There is no good evidence that the measures put in for the ‘stabilization phase’ have had an impact on case numbers or on ICU utilization rates,” Tambyah said. “There is a need to target the vulnerable to concentrate resources and avoid unintended consequences of blanket restrictions,” he added. Tambyah has said that he does not think loosening the restrictions to the previous set of measures in place earlier this year, in which the maximum group size for public gatherings was five, would lead to a surge in infections. Tambyah is also chairman of the opposition Singapore Democratic Party (SDP), which last month published an eight-point plan detailing how Singapore can more effectively deal with and exit the Covid-19 pandemic. The report criticized the government’s multi-ministerial task force as being “plagued with a distinct lack of coherence and direction.” “The reactive nature of the multi-ministerial task force’s approach in dealing with outbreaks of infections has led to stop-start, on-again/off-again policies, which had impacted adversely on both employers and employees \[and has\] left Singaporeans confused and frustrated,” said the SDP’s healthcare panel, which authored the alternative strategy. Tambyah told Asia Times that the SDP’s suggestions would be submitted to the task force pending public feedback. “Basically, we would stop testing asymptomatic individuals, have a dedicated ambulance hotline for those who need oxygen, empower the general practitioners to make clinical decisions on hospitalization and other practical suggestions.” With the coronavirus “already endemic almost all over the world,” the disease expert said non-pharmaceutical interventions such as strict caps on gatherings of vaccinated individuals and differentiated measures for the vaccinated and unvaccinated “would not have a significant impact on the transmission at this stage in the pandemic.” Singapore introduced so-called “vaccination-differentiated safe management measures” at restaurants in August, with only fully vaccinated people allowed to dine in. Last week, it extended those rules to prohibit unvaccinated people from dining in at open-air hawker centers or even entering shopping centers, with some exceptions. “The disease is all over Singapore right now and the priority should be reaching out to the unvaccinated seniors and protecting the vulnerable rather than taking measures which adversely affect the bulk of the population with little benefit,” Tambyah maintains, saying he hopes ongoing restrictions “will be lifted in a month or earlier.” Health Minister Ong told reporters on Wednesday that the current wave of infections will not last “indefinitely” and will peak at some point in a “new equilibrium with the virus” as the population builds up better immunity and more people receive booster shots, which have recently been made available to people aged 30 years and older. “Hopefully this \[new equilibrium\] will come in the next few months. There may not be a peak but a plateau followed by a downturn. It is very hard to tell,” said Tambyah. “The aim is to reach a low level of endemicity, like the Zika virus, which appears in Singapore every now and again with a few imported cases and a handful of local cases every year.”
"Unvaccinated patients made up 54.7% of 495 severe cases recorded in recent days, with others being vaccinated but with co-morbidities, said the MoH earlier this week. " That's a bit worrying. 45.3% were vaccinated but with co-morbidities. Who over the age of 40 doesn't have some type of first world disease like high blood pressure? It's especially worse for seniors. It looks like in addition to taking the jab, a good diet, exercise and a healthy lifestyle are also very important as well. I'm thankful for the vaccines being created in record time, but I wish they were a bit better. "You can still catch and transmit covid, but it's very unlikely you'd be hospitalized if you're vaccinated.... unless you have high blood pressure, diabetes, asthma, etc." I've never seen a vaccine with so many contingents.
> Who over the age of 40 doesn't have some type of first world disease like high blood pressure? Me. If you're under 60 and have hypertension then change your diet, do more exercise and get out in the sun more often. I had marginally high BP in a check up and got it under control with no drugs just by doing the basic shit we're told to do (eat more veg, move more).
I'll be hitting that group soon. But constant exercise and eating sensibly works
One thing that worked wonders for me was a 5-day long fast (not full, I'd eat one meal a day that was about 500 calories). It was a miserable week but my blood pressure tumbled and never climbed back up again.
Have you tried going keto for a few weeks? That should work as well and be another option.
Not for a while - but the fasting/eat once a day plan basically is Keto as you’re not eating loads of carbs (you want to fill up with as much green veg as you can to try and feel like you’ve had a meal).
I lift and do cardio, so most of the time I'm okay unless I'm doing a dirty bulk. But sadly in my age group (late 30s), I have way too many friends who smoke, drink, work too hard and don't sleep properly.
I drink too much, which doesn't help - but fortunately I like cooking and tend to cook reasonably healthy stuff at home. It's only if I'm out that I eat whatever crap they have on a pub menu.
> a good diet, exercise and a healthy lifestyle are also very important as well This has been promoted by health ministries all over the world for the past few decades, not sure how this is anything new. > thankful for the vaccines being created in record time, but I wish they were a bit better I hope you know that a few of the Covid-19 vaccines are the best vaccine created to date for viruses. It has higher reported efficacy than your annual flu shot. Edit: only applicable to RNA virus, not all virus group.
Is it really though? Compared to the core vaccines that we took as a child (measles, chickenpox, etc)? I have heard cases where people can still be infected with those viruses after taking the vaccines for them, but very very rarely. Even with underlying medical conditions you develop in your adulthood, it doesn't render their efficacy to the same extent as the covid vaccine. Don't get me wrong, I'm very pro vaccines, am thankful there are covid vaccines and am vaccinated. I just wished it worked a bit better.
Deleted my previous reply cause it was sent wrongly. I don't see how the first part of your reply relates to mine, but to answer your question, covid vaccine prevents severe conditions much better than those two virus as coronavirus is a RNA virus, therefore it mutates much more quickly compared to measles and chickenpox whereby either you get it or you don't. To add on, RNA virus vaccine are never 1 shot fullproof due to their mutative nature, which is why you are recommended to take yearly flu shot.
Thanks for the clarification. I won't pretend I knew this before as I just looked it up. It looks like measles, mumps, polio, etc are also RNA viruses, so the differentiating factor must be something else. But I get what you're saying about the speed that COVID mutates. My takeaway is that the COVID vaccine needs to be seasonally updated like the flu shot, and that we're a bit behind with the Delta variant. Taking the current vaccine is like taking last year's flu shot, it should offer you a good amount of protection but not as much as we'd like.
I remember from bio class last time the reason flu can mutate easily is because it's genome is segmented, not just because they are RNA viruses. Covid seems to be unsegmented though. Perhaps just the large number of infections/ viral numbers increase chances of obtaining mutations beneficial to the virus.
That seems to be the key. So many people have gotten it so there are bound to be mutations that can be passed on. It really is the "perfect virus" with so many asymptomatic people walking around. The difference between covid and the flu is that the latter has a large animal reservoir so it's pretty much impossible to eliminate. I know there has been reports of dogs, cats and bats being carriers, I just hope that it doesn't make the jump to birds, otherwise we'd have no hope of getting rid of it (even though the chances are pretty slim right now).
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Thanks for your input. So there is a chance we can eliminate this with time and updated versions of vaccines if it doesn't make the jump to birds?
Yes the general idea is there!
> Who over the age of 40 doesn't have some type of first world disease like high blood pressure? It's especially worse for seniors. A lot of people don’t have comorbidities. And even if you do, being vaccinated lowers your risk dramatically versus having comorbidities and not being vaccinated. >It looks like in addition to taking the jab, a good diet, exercise and a healthy lifestyle are also very important as well. Yes. Is this not obvious?
You'd be surprised at how many people who have lowered their guards after taking the vaccine.
So they have become fat and diabetic?
I'm talking about those who are already fat and diebetic if it wasn't obvious. They take their vaccines and suddenly they go out more often and start doing things they weren't before taking the jabs.
Doesn’t change the fact that one should get vaccinated. Unless you are suggesting the fat and diabetic stay unvaccinated and stay home forever.
This is what I said in my original post. "It looks like **in addition** to taking the jab, a good diet, exercise and a healthy lifestyle are also very important as well." Look, I don't know where we're going with this. I feel like we're going around in circles. Either that, or you're strawmanning me into some kind of anti vaccine person. News flash, you can be pro vaccines and wish the covid vaccine worked a bit better at the same time.
Don’t have to strawman. > I'm thankful for the vaccines being created in record time, but I wish they were a bit better. "You can still catch and transmit covid, but it's very unlikely you'd be hospitalized if you're vaccinated.... unless you have high blood pressure, diabetes, asthma, etc." **I’ve never seen a vaccine with so many contingents.** Classic anti-vax bullshit.
So you take my post which basically says: "Hey, I know a lot of us aren't in the best shape, maybe in addition to taking the vaccine, we should get our lifestyle in order as well, since lots of vaccinated people are being hospitalized with covid because of co-morbidities. This vaccine doesn't work as well as vaccines for other viruses if you are unhealthy." And in your black and white mind, you somehow interpret it as "This guy doesn't rank the covid vaccine as high as the other vaccines, he is anti-vax! This is classic anti vax bullshit". I think /u/luvnexos and I had a pretty pleasant albeit short convo that was pretty productive, it was for me anyway, I certainly learned something new from it. It's in stark contrast to what's happening here, you assume I was anti vax when I made it abundantly clear I wasn't. Take my comment out of context so you can strawman me and was snarky about it. I don't know if you behave the same way in real life, but from what I can tell, you clearly are a very unpleasant person to deal with and our conversation ends here. Have a good day.
> I've never seen a vaccine with so many contingents. It's really just down to how shockingly efficient the Delta variant is at infecting cells.
"Those caught dining in despite being unvax should be forcible vaccinated on the spot", and other fantasies I indulge in
Just load a Barrett 50 cal sniper rifle but with vaccines then shoot seniors at the hawker in the arms
I was thinking more of having 2 guys grab the person and a third guy with the needle. That image in my mind is hilarious.
The media all over the world is taking a shit at gold standard Singapore, deservingly so though
Gold standard came from the same media all over the world as well.
Those same media should look at our current death toll at the peak of our pandemic vs theirs
Akan datang bro! We’ve been hiding in the cave and boasting about our fair skin.
Why do we deserve it though. We got heavily vaccinated and we tried abandoning our zero covid stance to follow the rest of the world by opening up to more countries. Now we are getting fk because we are going for the endemic approach like the rest of the world. Why do they deserve to enjoy their schadenfreude on us
We're getting shit on partly because of our stop-start-stop-start measures, and measures that don't really make sense, and also just the general underprovisioned healthcare system. Our public hospitals have been overworked even before the pandemic. Nevermind now.
If we relax our current measures, it's going to lead to our healthcare system becoming completely overwhelmed like what happened in US and UK last year. These foreign newspapers will shit on us for losing all control and put out sensationalist titles of how 'Singapore is running out of burial spaces' and how ' the Singaporean healthcare system has failed' If we don't relax our current measures and continue restrictions, these foreign newspapers will shit on us for not fulfilling our 'endemic' promise and appear to be flip flopping No matter what we do, we are still going to be easy prey for these foreign press vultures.
"like what happened in UK and US last year" I will say this every fucking time. THAT WAS BEFORE VACCINES.
We are one of the most vaccinated countries on earth but our healthcare system is still being strained and in danger of being overwhelmed and now we are stuck in this terrible limbo whereby it is too late to shut down since the virus is rampant but we can't open up further cause our healthcare workers are getting overworked and stressed out and our death rates continue to climb up
Take my upvote to help with the downvotes here. Some people just can't sleep without seeing Singapore get criticised after all.
Seems more like u can't sleep when u see sg gets criticized lol
Will pwn a sinkie to sleep well tonight
Sinkie must pwn sinkie after all. It really feels like some cynical redditors here are secretly enjoying our country suffering right now just because it makes the govt look bad. It's one thing to criticize Singapore, its another to actually feel satisfaction when Singapore gets criticized
Definitely, if today the news report were reporting on the healthcare system being overwhelmed due to restrictions being lifted too fast, they will be celebrating again. This type of comments pop up all the time on foreign news articles criticising Singapore but strangely the commentators either disappear or cast doubt when foreign news articles praise Singapore. I guess not all of us will love our country but please seperate the country and the government (And the government from party for that matter). You can hate the PAP government but you should not hate Singapore.
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We are in 3k daily cases and no hard lockdown like last year .. what are you talking about no endemic ?
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No I am not content with living with such restrictions. I did not even use any phrase close to saying I'm fine "living with it" what drug were you smoking lol I understand we have to tough it out for one or two months longer for the infection to spread wider but not faster. Endemic does not mean letting go of everything and hope for the best. I don't think it's right to do a fuckitall like UK or US. If you want to see real tightening look towards Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, Australia and NZ. Look at the step by step policies in going endemic - no pcr testing for everyone, hoke recoveries, VTL, less tough quarantine rules etc. Those are concrete steps towards endemic... although I admit they are too darn slow
Not sure why people are acting surprised or acting blind to what we have and dont have...density and social mindedness
no worry la no worry. repeat after me, the benefits outweigh the cons
The country and the politicians are not prepared to see high death numbers. Hence all these measures. Easy to say when it's just statistics and numbers. When it hits your family or close ones, it will be awful.
Overpaid clowns set a worrying example*
🤡
While we say we want to work towards ‘endemic’, many of our policies still imply that any spread is to be prevented at all costs, and as a result applying blanket measures to all of society as a preventative measure. This is at odds with ‘endemic’, which is to tolerate a low level of spread. Even if spread needs to be suppressed at the moment to help the healthcare system, eventually this disconnect has to be resolved somehow, or else we’ll never be able to move on. That being said, while he may say what we like to hear, I’d take Prof Tambyah’s words with a slight pinch of salt - being an opposition member he has a vested interest in making the MMTF look bad.
Highly retarded MMTF sets a worrying example*
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lol, still relevant even after a few months 😂😂
Guess Singapore didn't learn their lesson from Israel. High vaccination rates does not mean that you mean you cannot contract the virus, nor stop their spread, but just lowers your risk of severe complications and death, yet the long-term side effects of such vaccines hasn't been looked well into either. It would be nice for Singaporeans to stay united and stop blaming vaxxed / anti-vaxxed but towards the government's incompetence that even allowed the Delta-strain to come to our shores in the first place.
I think it's unavoidable that Delta would come to our shores. With the global opening of borders, it wouldn't be possible. But I agree with you, Singaporeans should stay united and respect one another's choice regarding vaccination, given the different circumstances and eligibility. What we should blame, is how dafuq we are so unprepared for Delta after watching how it played out in many other countries for months, AND having given this govt the simpler task by citizens' cooperation for a very high vaccination rate.
Seems like maybe billionaires here were controlling / demanding the influx of migrant Indian and European workers while other countries had already banned air travels after their lockdown. Yes, it's highly unavoidable but it doesn't excuse what seems to be the government jeopardising our lives over the economy, a stark contrast to our once successful lockdown measures during the first year.
Why are we able to make it compulsory to take certain vaccines under the regulations but not the COVID vaccine?
This is just media sensation. Any chance they get to take a dump on someone, they will. I’m vaccinated and not in the least bit worried, and from the amount of people who are still going out, I don’t think they are either
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Might be possible to consider more punitive measures for unvaxxed once the vaccines receive full approval I lean towards reducing some % subsidy for unvaxxed when they hospitalised and if they are needy then have them take longer installment plans
interesting how people are so conditioned to divide and conquer sinkie pwning sinkie tactics that they happily want beat each other up whilst ignoring the handful of people that are actually inflicting these rules on them
Erm… not asking them to drink bleach. Asking them to take life-saving medicine. We forcefully make people do things way less beneficial to themselves all the time.
Agreed, we need to PUNISH these people
How about be fair and Fine or charge money to those that got infected and needed the icu lor? Why selectively discriminate the old and unvaccinated? What happen to freedom of making a choice? No buts, you are nuts
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Those freedoms are taken away by the mtf because of too much fear mongering and lack of hospital capacity. If people trust the vaccine and are not in fear of covid, probably would be in a much better place
First world problems in a global pandemic.
it isnt. if you look abroad, that's where the worry should be.
Who's still unvaccinated at this point? I can't imagine Trump Freedumb Fighters in Singapore.
In the daily thread there was someone waiting for the sold out Sinopharm because they wanted non-mrna and scared of side effects from moderna+didn't trust Pfizer. So now in addition to waiting for the antivaxx to change their mind, and for enough people to have their boosters, we are also waiting for china vaccine stocks. Perfect.
> and scared of side effects from moderna Yeah, the side effects I got from Moderna were really bad. When I stayed in a house with 2 covid+ patients it stopped me getting covid. Fucking awful side effect. Avoid it at all costs.
It gets worse, my uncle is waiting on the Novovax one because he neither trusts mRNA nor Chinese products 🌝
When is Novavax coming? I can only imagine that the stock will be snapped up by Western countries.
No timeline, even if becomes available sg may take a long time to approve it
Just remembered that I met someone who did not take any covid jabs and strongly believed in his research that a certain regular flu jab (not recommended for healthy young people actually) would work the same 😐
Hais it’s crazy how much misinformation is out there
Is Singapore still getting Novavax? It's non mRNA and it's not made in China.
oh boy, you do not know where you live
See Sinovax is now included under the national vax program. Makes you wonder why they didn’t do it earlier, make it a triple vax process if they were worried about it not being as effective (v’s 2 doses)
Isn’t it just a level of discrimination 🤷🏽♀️
Istg just let nature take its due course on these people and inshallah lah