The week started with a call from an Indian minister to ask the people to be aware of the new S’pore virus variant mutation that affects children and to ban flights from that country.
Funnily, the S’pore strain does not exist as it is had been already scientifically tagged and identified as originating from Indian (B.1.167). S’poreans naturally went up in arms to condemn the misinformation and memes were furiously produced. The country that gave it to us and now resulted in us having a mini-lockdown now wants to ban our flights. The irony was so rich and tragic, considering that India is now fighting the worst pandemic of modern times.
It was probably a political move to distract citizens from the shitstorm that is happening onshore where everyone is rushing for oxygen tanks. The Indian mutant virus has swallowed up the whole country and causing panic. Whole families have died and all medicine was in short supply. The daily tragic human toll and news update were getting worse. Modi seems to have given up.
Meanwhile, more unlinked and community cases were recorded in S’pore. New emergency measures had to be announced and effected on Sunday. It seems to be very contagious and spreading to the younger population via tuition centres and schools. Because of the TraceTogether app, tracking of positive cases were highly automated via the Bluetooth function of the tracker.
There was a mad scrambling of issuing quarantine orders to multiple suspect cases but the hotels could not keep up with the sudden surge in demand. Two of our close friends had received call notifications or SMS to inform them that they were affected and to be on standby for further instructions. Schools were told to test all students. Even a public housing block was identified and all residents there were told to get tested after 3 positive cases were found there.
We are told to stay home as much as possible to try to break the virus cycle. While the restrictions were not as severe as the Circuit Breaker a year ago, there was a sense of unease for everyone towards this new danger. Though the vaccination rollout had already started in Jan and more than 30% of the population had been vaccinated, much is still unknown so far.
Reports said that the fully vaccinated positive cases seem to not require hospitalization. The vaccination program still has not been rolled out for those 45 years and younger. That may account for why the younger population are getting the new strain now. The worry is that we are suddenly seeing it in a lot of kids below 10 years old. Things are starting to unfold and the next few days will be critical to understanding if the restrictions could arrest the spread or if we need to go into more serious lockdowns.
Surprisingly, the Western world is going in the opposite direction. The UK and US are starting to open up their businesses to try to return back to normal. America’s CDC announced that masks are no longer needed for the fully vaccinated.
It is disturbing to note that Asian countries like S’pore, Taiwan, Vietnam, Japan and India are now battling new Covid waves while the West is blissfully unaware that the strain could travel to their shores soon. This is like a horror movie where you know how the story will play out next. The UK and South Africa strains had created new waves previously. What makes us so sure that the Indian one will not do the same around the world soon? It is like a slow-moving train wreck that is unravelling in front of our eyes. I hope I am wrong about this.
Given that we are unable to eat out and told to stay home as much as possible, this week has been a quick reversal to old lockdown schedules of getting used to staying in our rooms the whole day and eating in. I try my best to go for a run every morning to stay sane. My online classes and e-Learning program on Data Science keeps me occupied. 3 more weeks to go till this mini-lockdown is done.
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