Author: CheckW

Over my last few blogs, I have been discussing the upcoming debate between vaccinated and unvaccinated groups. Things are becoming more heated as the unvaccinated becomes a minority in countries where countries have enough vaccines to protect their population.

I try to seek out the reasons behind the hesitation to get the vaccines via a few Clubhouse chat groups where they try to have an open discussion to listen to both sides of the story. The main argument for not taking the shot was “My body, my personal right”. This was followed up with some other explanations which I find hard to accept.

Firstly, they argued that the science behind the virus was not accurate and it is constantly changing. Duh!! We knew very little about the virus at the beginning of 2020 and had to react accordingly to it as we got more data while it is also evolving into new strains. Doing the same thing many times and expecting a different outcome is not the way to fight an ever-changing invisible enemy.

Then there were the hearsay arguments that are repeated trumped as gospel truths. That they or their FB “friends” see an empty ICU ward in their community and use it as evidence that the media is lying to them about overwhelmed facilities and the deadliness of Delta sweeping the country.

Next comes what I term is the “selfish” argument. If 99% of people who contacted COVID19 will recover and not die, why should they take it? What about your family and loved ones around you then? You could spread it to them and also become an agent to the development of a new mutation of the virus. Have you not heard of long Covid yet? Symptoms can remain for many months after you recover from the infection.

The virus is ever-evolving and governments are constantly trying to get ahead of the game over the last 18 months. It didn’t help that politics came into play and trumped science and common sense in the initial phase. This caused a setback of at least 6 months where many lives were unnecessarily lost. The vaccines arrived in Dec 2020 and the logistical nightmare to distribute them was huge.

Two things have happened since then. One, that more people in the privileged countries with sufficient supplies can get vaccinated. Tw0, that there is enough evidence to conclude that they do work to prevent hospitalization and death.

As the goal of achieving herd immunity through vaccination is slowly being reached, the unvaccinated will become a minority. When 70 to 80% of the population is vaccinated, the vaccinated majority will want their movement restrictions to be relaxed. The only problem is that the unvaccinated may stand in the way of reopening.

So what is the solution? Companies and governments naturally have to restrict the movements of the unvaccinated going forward, right? You cannot make the class stay back after school just because of one class bully. That’s not fair. Instead, you should only make the class bully remain in class.

The unvaccinated should now have to wear masks everywhere they go (which they have been protesting against for months LOL). They have to go for regular testing. Their rights to activities like dining out or group gatherings will have to be restricted. They cannot assume that life will return to normal for them as they are now a risk to society and themselves. Hospital facilities may be filled up by them if the next wave hits.

Vaccine immunity electronic passports will become the norm. Those that do not have them will not be welcomed to visit other countries. This will be for the greater good of the whole community. Welcome to the new normal.

The situation is dire for the countries that currently have low vaccination rates due to the inability to get enough vaccine supplies. I speak to my counterparts in Myanmar and things are getting from bad to worst. They are resigned to the fact that the probability of getting infected with COVID is high and they have to try their best to protect themselves. Vaccine supplies are not coming anytime soon. They just have to hunker down and hope for the best.

The whole of Asia is experiencing a surge of Delta cases now. Even China and Japan are not spared. Daily cases in America are also rising and the hospitalized are getting younger as 99% of deaths are from the unvaccinated. It seems like the latest wave is winning but yet the stock markets are still rising.

Our little red dot is embarking on a brave new experiment to treat COVID as an endemic event and not a pandemic anymore. It just announced measures to cautiously reopen again just when everyone else is trying to add more lockdowns. Even as we see 4 new deaths within the last week (all unvaccinated), the push to reopen is reinforced by the fact that 70% of the population will be vaccinated by next week.

By the end of Aug, that percentage will jump to 80%. It will mean that there is high confidence in knowing that there is a low probability of ICUs being overwhelmed. Hence the need to differentiate the treatment of the unvaccinated and allow the economy to function again.

Over the last few weeks of lockdown, I have personally seen a number of F&B outlets calling it quits for good. The start-stop lockdowns were death by a thousand paper cuts for them. It had finally completely eaten into their reserves and they have to throw in the towel. This reopening announcement had come in too late for them.

The virus is a formidable enemy. The GIF video below aptly describes the current situation where many curved balls have been served to the authorities who have to be nimble and change accordingly to react to the latest salvo. It is an uphill battle where each individual and authority try to fight on for the sake of society survival. We will get to the finishing line and many sacrifices have to be offered. The unvaccinated are the next in the line of sight for authorities and companies…

Last week, I blogged about the upcoming new Covid battle between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated. The voices in this debate are getting louder as Delta ravages the world, even in our compliant Little Red Dot.

As the privileged countries debate on this, many others with no supply of vaccines try their best not to catch the virus and stay alive. The percentage of vaccinated people are slowly growing bigger and overwhelming the unvaccinated. Aggressive pushes by the authorities have met with stiff resistance from the hardcore anti-vaxxers.

I try to listen to both sides of the coin to better understand their concerns and hesitations to get the vaccine and Clubhouse chat groups are a good listening ground. My conclusion remains the same. Other than valid medical reasons, the non-vaccinated are still swamped by misinformation against factual scientific results and deep personal selfishness.

Let me expand on this. Results to date have shown that almost all deaths and hospitalization from Delta belong to the unvaccinated. This is not like a common cold. Between staying alive and dying, what would a rational person choose? Many doctors have shared that patients in ICU are finally convinced that they should have the vaccine but they have to inform the patient that it’s too late to take it.

Then there is the argument that one does not know the long term effects of the vaccine. Hello? We have been taking many different types of vaccines since we were born – chickenpox, flu etc. It is a way of life to protect us and eradicate virus strains permanently. If you die from Covid now, what does it matter how your concerns for the long term vaccine after-effects will be? These people are really not thinking straight and weighing the pros and cons of taking the vaccine logically. Do you really need the death of a family member from the virus to finally convince you to take the vaccine?

The selfishness angle is also vomit-inducing. Non-vaccinated people can effectively pass it on to higher risk groups like their elderly parents or kids below 12 who are not allowed to take the vaccine at the moment. You only think about yourself and not about how your inactions can affect the community at large. If you promise to stay in your house and never go out again, then maybe you can have the right not to get vaccinated. Fair?

Many are now questioning the reasons for the on and off again lockdowns and their impact on businesses. If vaccination is the solution, why is everyone being punished for the actions of the minority now? Shouldn’t there be different standards and limitations for both groups? The non-vaccinated should have restrictions to their movements, get tested regularly and be forced to wear masks everywhere at the minimum.

Anti-vaxxers first complain about wearing masks that restrict their first amendment rights, then say “my body, my rights”. Yet they are now becoming the problem. The virus refuses to go away because of the action of this group. Science and factual evidence are presented to them but yet they cling on to old news and conspiracies.

Should we just leave them alone and let them experience it the hard way when they get COVID? Yes, but their inaction will still affect all of us. Their movements should therefore be severely restricted as a precondition to them holding out against the vaccine. That seems like a fair and reasonable tradeoff, no? The world is slowly coming around to the realization that a certain group is preventing the rest from getting back to normalcy.

S’pore, via the latest lockdown because of the fishery port clusters, is doing its last aggressive push to get as many vaccinated as possible. Hopefully, by the end of Aug, we should have more than 75% of the population vaccinated. The pandemic to endemic strategy can then be executed. The relaxation of the previous restrictions can also then be implemented. We should see more signs of this by mid-Aug. Our long term economic survival as a country is at stake.

The latest lockdown has again claimed more business victims. I see at least 2 coffee shops shut down for good in my neighbourhood over the last 2 weeks. They have probably given up and ran out of cashflows with multiple stop-start restrictions which made the business untenable. They have thrown in the towel.

Yes, you have the right to not take the vaccine based on your rights and beliefs. BUT you do not have the right to punish the rest of the community and to infect the vulnerable with your selfish thinking. We will treat you like the pariah that you will become, so that the rest of us can go on living a life we used to know again. That is a fair tradeoff.

The next impending COVID battle is coming very soon and it is not what we would have expected. More of this later.

After the KTV saga last week, it seems that this was the lesser of the 2 developing virus spread issues that the authorities were worried about. With the KTVs, there was a more effective way to break the cycle because of the common characteristics of the guilty parties. Most clients were usually men below 40 who had taken mainly just 1 vaccine shot as it was only recently opened for registration for this age group. The women working in these establishments can also be easily traced, tested and quarantined if required.

The fishery port cluster is another can of worms altogether. It has been lurking unseen in the shadows for quite a while already. Preliminary investigations point to a Delta transmission via seafood brought over from Indonesia as the cause. In turn, the fish had been redistributed to fishmongers who had brought them into the various wet markets around the island.

Weeks ago, the government was just promoting a plan of reopening by National Day. Its strategy was to test, trace and vaccinate. Moving on to treating the virus as endemic rather than as a pandemic was the main focus of the new plan. By getting herd immunity via vaccination to at least 75% of the population, we might just be able to return back to normal again as the rest of the world catches up with us. All this had just gone up in smoke after the KTV and Fishery port fiascos. In an unprecedented move, even the date of National Day celebrations is now pushed to a later date!! LMAO!

The 4 rings of virus defence are now severely challenged as multiple wet markets had been shut down as more positive cases had been uncovered. Aunties buying fish from their favourite stores are testing positive. All fishmongers were tasked to get tested. This shit show straddles across the whole spectrum of society as it may have gone unnoticed for a while already. The silent enemy had penetrated into the multiple layers of weakness to infect more victims. To date, there are more than 600+ from this growing cluster and daily cases remain high.

The government had now decided to backtrack on its plan to reopen and have tightened up again aggressively. We have now gone back into a new 1-month lockdown. Dine-in has been banned and only 2 visitors per day per household are allowed. More than 50+ unlinked cases are popping up every day and the widening circle of infection is worrying.

The authorities had justified the latest lockdown as a way to protect the seniors above 60 who have yet to take their vaccinations. This was the age group that were the first to be offered the vaccines as a way to protect the elderly. The numbers show that there are still about 200,000 who have not had their shots yet. There is a fear that the hospital ICU units will be overwhelmed if a percentage of this group of unvaccinated elders were infected.

The authorities had recently managed to bring the size of this group from 280k to the current 200k. It has vowed to do a new aggressive push this month to target this group during the new lockdown. Some are because of ignorance or were not mobile enough to go to the vaccination centres to get the shots.

The Delta variant is currently sweeping all countries with Gamma and Lambda following close behind. I wrote about my concern of the Delta spread a few weeks ago and alas, it has proven true. American news media as usual has been the most vocal on this issue. Biden goes on marketing campaigns to get more anti-vaxxers to take the vaccines and stop the misinformation. Almost 99% of all COVID deaths now are from non-vaccinated people.

This brings me to the next impending Covid battle that is starting to rear its ugly head. Frankly speaking, the vaccinated group is getting sick and tired of the stubborn people who still refuse to take the vaccine even though the science and evidence support it. There is distrust of the vaccines and possible long term effects they may cause. Plus multiple crazy misinformation like making you magnetic, it injects a microchip into you and that Gates/Soro is behind this grand master plan are really screwing up the efforts to save more lives.

If you are willing to take the chance and not get a shot that may potentially save your life, it is your own right and call to do so. BUT by not taking it, you are also selfishly endangering the rest of the people around you too. You will allow the virus to continue to spread more easily into the community and gives it time to mutate into other deadlier variants. Also, you may likely spread it to others (vaccinated and unvaccinated) and clog up emergency hospital ICU resources eventually.

The worst thing is that this small group prevents the rest to have the ability to return to normal any time soon. The burning question now is: “Why should we all go into a new lockdown for the sake of the unvaccinated minority?” Shouldn’t the vaccinated be allowed to return back to their old lives while we restrict the movements of the unvaccinated instead?

This growing battle is bound to get more heated in the months to come. Enough is enough. If you have an abundance of vaccines and you refuse to take them, unlike the rest of the world that is still scrambling to source them, we should have the right to restrict your access to activities, right?

As the percentage of vaccinated people increases to a herd immunity level, more of this heated argument will be raised. My body, my rights? Sure. But if it endangers others, then this right should be taken away. This impending new COVID battle will become centre stage in the months to come.

The national KTV fiasco exploded into all our faces on Sunday for our sunny island. It was a disaster that was waiting to happen.

Again and again, the virus seeks and expose a country’s weakest points and exploit them to the fullest extent possible. Just a small gap is enough for the new variants to wreak havoc on all the well planned months of the national COVID19 strategy. This episode will become a well-studied case study for classrooms for years to come.

Karaoke: a type of interactive entertainment usually offered in clubs and bars, where people sing along to recorded music using a microphone. This phenomenon started as a Japanese invention that had swept Asia for many years.

This behaviour developed into a KTV (Karaoke TV) concept. People who can or cannot sing will gather in a small room, drink lots of alcohol, get blasted and have a good time acting silly while destroying songs with their terrible singing. There are many types of KTVs for all types of clientele. Seedier versions of KTVs with accompanying hostesses became popular places for the entertainment of clients to close business deals all around Asia.

And this is where our national disaster story began. These KTVs had been closed for more than a year when the pandemic started. Business owners had been pleading to the authorities to allow them to open as their survival was at stake with zero income for months.

A compromise was reached more than a month ago when they were allowed to reopen as F&B (Food and Beverage) outlets instead. The idea was to convert them into a viable business model that had safety procedures in place against the virus. But old habits die hard and a leopard does not change its spots so easily overnight.

The KTVs still operate with multiple small rooms for private groups where anything goes inside. Close proximity is unavoidable when many are crammed into each room. The free flow of alcohol does amazing things to the human mental state of mind. Coupled that with many female foreigners on social visit passes looking to making a quick buck as hostesses who are currently stuck in S’pore and a perfect storm is formed.

Many people who have been locked up in their homes for months suddenly had an outlet to go back to the good old days of singing their hearts out with a PYT (Pretty Young Thing) sitting beside them feeding them fruits and praising their singing prowess. Masks are taken off, social distancing becomes impossible. Hostesses work the KTV rooms and even visit multiple locations to maximize their nightly earnings. It just takes one positive case to quickly spread to many people as Delta is more contagious than the original strain.

We had seen this similar situation being played out before in HK (rich Tai-tais and foreign male dancers), Seoul (gay bars) and Taiwan (seniors seeking companionship). Most initially refused to come forward for testing because of the embarrassment and stigma of being associated with an activity that resulted in the spread of the virus.

Most who came up for testing even gave fake names and contact numbers which the authorities couldn’t get in touch with when the results came back positive a few days later. Governments had to resort to promising anonymous testing later as a desperate attempt to trace and quarantine positive cases before the virus spread out of control.

And here we are again in S’pore, promising anonymous testing to all the hot-blooded males who visited the identified KTVs. Many memes flooded my WhatsApp chat groups. Some were hilarious for me to watch but agonizing to those who were at these KTVs.

One guilty party had worked in a satay store at Lorong 5, Toa Payoh. He quickly became the poster boy and the perfect alibi for all the distressed husbands and boyfriends. “Honey, I visited this satay store and that is why I got the SMS to go for testing….”

Thanks to the TraceTogether app, authorities managed to triangulate and pinpoint possible suspects to send notices for testing and quarantine. To date, they had managed to quarantine 2,048 persons. Imagine a group of fully clothed PPE personnel coming knocking at your door to lead you to quarantine in front of all your neighbours. So much for anonymous testing.

There was another fallout to this episode. The cruise to nowhere by Genting had to come back early when one passenger was tested positive. It was discovered that the person is likely linked to the KTV cluster. They had a mini-lockdown and the last passengers could only disembark much later.

As of now, this KTV cluster of positive cases has grown to 120. My group of friends who met on Thurs for dinner are doing a side bet on what would be the final tally of this cluster. It is worrying that not all would step forward to be tested for fear of embarrassment and arrest. We need only one such case to result in many more being infected.

The recently announced reopening process was just tightened again yesterday. The push to 75% of the population to be fully vaccinated now becomes more urgent. It will be the only viable medium-term solution to combat this virus cycle besides more testing. The national strategy for COVID19 is now 3 pronged – Test, Trace and Vaccinate while we wait for the rest of the world to catch up.

A new National Geographic article just highlighted a new variant called Lambda that is spreading in South America now. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/the-unusual-lambda-variant-is-rapidly-spreading-in-south-america-heres-what-we-know?cmpid=org=ngp::mc=crm-email::src=ngp::cmp=editorial::add=Science_20210714&rid=3874980ACBC3584D7640DCF59882D61B

Covid19 is here to stay and the pandemic will become endemic. It will be a way of life like what the annual flu shots have become as viruses characteristically mutant over time. We are also discovering new things every few months in the fight against this virus and have to always remain vigilant always.

Michael Lewis recently published his new book “The Premonition” about the pandemic America went through in 2020.

He is the author of books like Liar’s Poker, The Blind Side and The Big Short plus various insightful articles he wrote for magazines like Vanity Fair. His books are usually not too long at about 200+ pages and he has a way of making any topic interesting, challenging the reader to develop a new perspective from another angle of the camera lens.

He is one of the few writers I actively sought to check out new articles that he might have recently published as he has a diverse area of interest that spans from the most popular to the mundane. His critical eye and investigative journalism skills help to eventually craft a story that captivates the reader.

As with all humans, his views may be biased sometimes but yet it can be informative, unlike American news media that claim to be neutral all the time but yet are unable to get out of their echo chamber of political views. He tries to only concentrate on subjects related to America which sometimes do affect the rest of the world.

This book was an unexpected follow-up to his last book “The Fifth Risk”, written in 2018, almost 2 years into the Trump presidency. The previous book talks about the systematic dismantling of the infrastructure of the American government by a short-sighted and clueless administration driven only by costs and dollar signs while abandoning the wisdom of past presidencies.

This new book is a perfect lead up to where America was ill-prepared for the full onslaught of the COVID19 pandemic. A leaderless nation plagued by fears and lies, running an ill-equipped infrastructure that has already been stripped bare. It was the perfect storm waiting to happen.

This book tells of a small group of brave individuals who saw the storm approaching and tried all means to stop its devastation when no one was manning the house. In their little ways, they tried to warn as many people as they can by showing all their findings and scientific facts to whoever would listen. They even had a pandemic reaction playbook prepared for execution but none in authority had the balls to press the red button.

A few characters in the book stood out as heroes in the fight against the virus. This group of misfits eventually grew to an expanding email list with regular conference calls. The group was named Wolverines after the show Red Dawn – they were the group that fought against the Russian invading forces.

The book starts with a teenager’s school project. She decided that her contest entry topic should be pandemics and the best ways to prevent a virus from spreading in a community. Her dad, being a computer geek and scientist, got involved as it interested him immensely. The event became a father-daughter bonding project.

The discovery of the most effective method to break the virus cycle after multiple experiments were surprisingly simple. Close all schools immediately! It will break the cycle of the contagious spread of the virus. When the pandemic hit last year, that was the last thing America did as it did not want to cause panic. It had still refused to acknowledge the seriousness of the virus till it was too late.

Back in 2005, President Bush had tasked a team to come up with a pandemic response for the nation. This is where the name Carter Mecher appeared. He was part of that team that wrote the report which was ignored last year. He is the main hero of the Wolverine team, working from his basement and thinking out of the box for solutions and quantifying actionable responses against COVID19.

They were trying to shout as loud as they can to whoever will listen but no one in the administration did. After a “false” alarm many years ago, the CDC had become an organization that refuses to stick its neck out for fear of causing a panic. When Trump told the governors that they were on their own to fight the pandemic, the Wolverines decided to turn their attention to a state that is receptive to their findings.

Charity Dean came into the picture here. She convinced the California governor using the team’s data to finally become the first state to implement a shutdown. In hindsight now, that action had prevented it from hitting its worst-case scenario which they had projected.

The other amazing person in the book was Joe Derisi. He was the inventor of the Virochip which could identify and nail down the origins of any virus. It breaks down a new virus into its basic components and compares that to another similar virus to spot the differences. That helps narrow down the differences and then do a deep dive on the extra components. For example, 1,000 versus 1,010 and then to investigate the extra 10 extra that was discovered. There was an interesting side story on how they solved the mystery of why snakes were dying globally. https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2012/08/98679/mysterious-snake-disease-decoded

He was working at the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub and managed to come up with the first functioning COVID19 testing centre nationally. Testing was the most critical weapon in the fight against the virus before vaccines were available. But they were prevented from maximizing their lab due to much red tape. Politically, the negative association to a FaceBook related company also caused much regrettable distrust.

The comedy of errors and the fumbling of the toothless leadership (Trump and CDC) was tragic to observe in the second half of the book as the Wolverines tried to push through to save as many lives as possible.

As the book was released in May 2021, the COVID19 story has not ended and it is still evolving. The unsatisfactory ending of this book means that Lewis should have the opportunity to write another follow-up book as the timeline of this one ends in 2020.

An enlightening book to read. It looks promising that there is high hope that we will be better prepared for the next pandemic with the lessons learned. I know now that there are already existing tools to help us better defend ourselves the next time. A highly recommended book to read! 3 thumbs up…

The Old Normal is dead. The virus has changed the world to a New Normal where we are still trying to figure out as we evolved with the pandemic and use technology for workaround solutions.

It has been 1.5 years into this once in a 100 years event which has changed our lifestyles and ways of working forever. Many previously thought to be difficult adoption processes were quickly made mainstream, not by choice. The acceleration of technological advances had taken a quantum leap into the unknown.

WFH was forced upon us as we encountered one lockdown after another. Not being able to travel and getting used to staying in your room/home for months became the status quo. Human nature is adaptable and we actually got used to it. Some even like it so much that they really didn’t want to go out anymore, even after we reopened… LOL

The next 6 months horizon looks promising. With more vaccinations and testing capabilities, a return towards a new normalcy could be possible, even as new variants appear. Various countries are attempting new experiments to open up to the world.

Phuket Thailand had just started its Sandbox reopening on 01 Jul and welcomed more than 400 vaccinated tourists to its shores on the first day. Resorts are offering fantastic deals – booking.com shows great long term deals for just a few hundred dollars. Phuket had made a great effort to get at least 70% of the population vaccinated. Vaccinated tourists will have to be tested before their flights and do it a few more times during their stay at Phuket without the need to quarantine themselves. They still have to wear masks but can move freely around the island. Once they are in Phuket for 14 days, they will be allowed to travel to other parts of Thailand.

This is a brave concept to experiment with a reopening for overseas vaccinated visitors for a country that is very dependent on tourism. Its success will bring hope to the rest of the world that perhaps we can open safely in a controlled manner. No country can shut itself from the world forever. Vaccines and testing are the way to counter the pandemic and treat the virus as endemic instead.

In S’pore, there have been signs that the authorities do acknowledge this. They are adjusting their messaging to move to a world where we have to live with the virus as it will never be totally eradicated. New ways have to be used to balance safety and economic viability.

With more easily available testing, quarantine periods can be slowly reduced. Recently, the 21 days required had been reduced back to 14 days. More tests during this period (up to 3 times) will also help to sustain a tolerable level of risk monitoring in spotting positive cases. We probably can reduce it to 7 days soon. With more countries achieving herd immunity, the quarantine process could eventually be unnecessary.

The ongoing Phuket Sandbox experiment will give us more data and confidence on how to open successfully and could even encourage more people to get vaccinated. It offers hope that a modified way of going back to a more normal way is possible.

I still have some friends who refuse to take the vaccine for themselves and their kids. They fear long term issues and question the safety of the new mRNA technology and prefer to adopt a wait and see attitude. As more get vaccinated and we reach the goal of herd immunity, the risk for this group will also correspondingly increase. Without any protection against the virus or its variants, they will be exposed to the worst effects of Covid19.

I think that the decision to not take the vaccine is really not worth the above risk/reward calculation. Looking to stay alive now is better than worrying about the future side effects as more than a billion shots have already been given out. The vaccines have also shown successes in preventing hospitalization or death when the vaccinated are infected. Why wait when you can get one while most of the world is still scrambling to find enough vaccines for their population?

We had a first-ever neighbours dinner last Sat that went well as we got to know them better after living side by side for many years. It was a way to also thank them for helping us paint some parts of our place as they were doing major renovation works at the same time. Their kids were around the same age as ours too and so it was good for them to get to know each other better.

My Data Science exams ended on Mon and the last module on AI Practitioner started on Thurs. This will be the final 2 months of my IBM course. I will be planning my next lifelong learning adventure soon by applying for a banking-related internship on similar tech initiatives. If the application is successful, it will start in Dec for 12 to 18 months.

https://www.ibf.org.sg/programmes/Pages/TFIP.aspx

Finally, I had a wonderful dinner last night with a group of good friends from uni days whom I have known for more than 30+ years. We had too much sake and good food while reminiscing on old times again.

When will the Covid19 virus pandemic nightmare end? It is likely that it will never go away and that we have to get used to having it with us for a long time to come.

Countries around the world are realizing that with new variants popping up once in a while and that vaccinating the whole world is so difficult, we have to face the fact that the COVID19 pandemic will evolve to become an endemic going forward.

An endemic refers to a disease that exists permanently in a particular region or population. Like the common flu or smallpox, it occurs periodically and can take many years to totally eradicate if we have careful and successful global coordination efforts.

The S’pore authorities have started to prep its citizens on such a possibility over the last few days. As testing capabilities and the vaccination drive are ramped up, the easing of border restrictions will follow. Data gathered so far (since the first vaccinations started 6 mths ago from Dec 2021) suggest that it is effective in preventing serious hospitalization or death. Those that are vaccinated had an almost negligible (about the same rate as the common flu) mortality/hospitalization rate in this current Delta Plus wave.

The Covidiots in the US are still screaming about the possible long term side effects of the vaccines. What is there to shout about if you could die now when you are unvaccinated and then are exposed to the virus? Isn’t it better to take the possible long term vaccine risk to survive and stay alive in the current situation? All these efforts to convince this group to vaccinate is a wasted effort. Let them experience the virus on a first-hand basis then.

We are started to see a trend where countries are relaxing their border entry restrictions to those that are fully vaccinated. Quarantine periods are also reduced but more testing is now required. Before the inbound flight, one has to test within 3 days. Then at the airport, we have to show proof of vaccination. Upon landing, there will also be 2 to 3 more tests during the quarantine period at the designated centres. This appears to be a sensible approach – to reopen up slowly while getting used to an endemic normal.

The main goals of countries now are to get at least 75% of their population vaccinated and to boost testing capabilities. By then, the virus will become like the annual common flu where we have booster shots available every 6 months. Again, there is not enough data so far if booster shots for Covid19 are required as we only have 6 months of experience to date. Time will tell.

More and better vaccines are still being developed as we speak. Testing is getting more efficient and available, with results waiting periods from a week to 15 minutes now. I remember that S’pore only had a testing capability of 4k/day only just a year ago. Testing of the FW (Foreign Workers) dormitory outbreak last year had to be done on a batch basis to conserve the test kits. All individual test swaps from multiple roommates had to be combined together and tested as one batch. If the results were positive, all room occupants were assumed to have the virus and will be quarantined together.

Our testing ability is now more than 70k/day and newer self-test kits are also available for sale at pharmaceutical shops. We are realizing that the virus is here to stay and that we have to adapt to it accordingly. Getting used to it being around us and preventing high fatality/hospitalization will be the goals. The annual flu kills a lot of people every year, yet we have gotten used to it and have flu shots to provide an added layer of protection if anyone wants it.

The stock market had reached a new all-time high this week again. With everything dropping off a cliff in Mar 2020 when the virus hit the world, there were big drops of demand everywhere as the world went to a standstill. Supply chains froze and everyone had to stay at home during multiple lockdowns.

An increase from those low bases established last year seems like a big incremental uptick in absolute terms which excited investors. Companies with a tech edge that did well during this period of time also boosted the momentum. Central banks forced to spend and print more money to support its hapless citizens added fuel to the asset inflation bubble. Meme stocks, Cryptos and NFT crazy phases came and went. The velocity of money quickened as the retail markets chased the next big thing while financial institutions play catch up.

It is still hard to predict when and where this party will end, except that it may not happen so soon yet. I still think there are legs to run before 2021 ends. Meanwhile, it might be prudent to remain loaded up in selective assets to continue to ride this investment wave. Markets are still trying to adjust to this evolving new normal and it is not easy to look more than 6 months out into our crystal balls. We have to be nimble and constantly fine-tune our portfolio accordingly.

My older son finally got his first Moderna shot this week. His age group (12 to 39) was the last to be opened up for vaccine registration. The authorities have also prioritized citizens for registration for the first 3 weeks. We should hopefully reach herd immunity by National Day in early Aug.

A new opportunity opened up for me this week and I will have to study it in more detail before I commit to it. My data science exam is this Mon and it is the second last module of my full-time AI course which will end in Aug. There is a new program by IBF which will open for registration soon which I am keen on. Hopefully, that will bring me to the next stage of pivoting from a Treasury consultant role into a Business Analytics and AI career. This will help me to continue my life long learning journey.

The Western world is slowly opening up after more than a year of hibernation against the virus and Biden was targeting Independence Day as a nationwide reopening date. Then disappointment strikes…

The newly termed Delta variant from India is slowly sweeping through the world and moving westwards. S’pore experienced it more than a month ago and did a mini lockdown in response after multiple unlinked cases surfaced. It was also an indirect function of more testing and the national implementation of electronic contact tracing tokens which I will explain below.

Testing was just 4k/day at the start of the pandemic and it is now boosted up to more than 70k/day. Contact tracing used to be manual and physical tracking teams spent days and weeks interviewing cases and trying to construct cluster maps to solve the unlinked cases. If someone lied, which had happened with a senior married woman who did not want to reveal her close relationship with another man, the undetected link could result in a newer and bigger undiscovered cluster much later. It was a needle in a haystack situation and luck played a large part during those early days where everyone was still trying to figure out how bad the situation actually was.

Pivot to today. With a press of a button on your phone or token, the contact tracing team can upload all the mesh contact data from you, who you have been within 1 meter away from data for the last few weeks. Via Bluetooth, the app notes all the close contacts you have encountered and records the info in your token or mobile. It’s like the Apple AirTag on steroids. Once the data is uploaded to the consolidated master database, the team can triangulate and plot all the human contact maps. They can then trigger the various levels of contacts to alert the affected people to go for testing via SMS or Whatsapp.

For example, if an infected person visited a particular shop or mall during a certain time/date, the team can backtrack to the particular day and trigger an alert to the first, second or even third level of contacts to advise them to go for testing asap. They initially tried to quarantine as many people as possible but this backfired badly as it created chaos and the hotels could not handle the huge surge in demand. As it was mainly young students getting the Delta variant at the beginning, it meant that a parent had to accompany the kid too. This means the immediate doubling of hotel quarantine demand.

Two of my friends told me about the confusion they faced when they were informed via SMS that their kids had to be quarantined. This was followed by days of anxious anticipation, waiting for someone to pick them up, getting their packed bags ready at all times and fruitless calls to the hotline which did not respond with answers.

Thanks to technology and the use of the Bluetooth token mesh data, the huge contact tracing productivity gain (versus manual tracking previously) meant that the authorities were more than ready and a little too “kan-cheong”/trigger happy to activate a targeted lockdown of as many people as possible at the beginning of the Delta surge. The team had to quickly learn to balance between risk and practicality versus trying to contain the Delta virus.

It is still a work in process as the team adjust its strategy accordingly. It learned from HK to lock down certain housing blocks if the evidence points to many cases in the same location. Then it can make all the occupants go for testing to uncover new positive cases to arrest the spread. Delta is more contagious so the turnaround time to detect and contain unlinked cases is more urgent but action plans had to be pragmatic as higher efficiency due to technology advances kick in.

Anyway, S’pore decided to delay its opening and to phase out the restrictions gradually, rather than all at once as we start to see uneven surges in linked and unlinked cases. This makes practical sense. It also helps to manage citizens’ expectations. Even Boris has decided to delay the UK opening by a month now as Delta starts to hit them.

I worry for the western world as Europe and America had begun opening up over the last few weeks even as Asia was hunkering down against Delta. The previous stars of Covid19 containment like S’pore, Taiwan and Vietnam started to have an exponential rise in cases. Taiwan had zero cases for almost 8 months and suddenly had hundreds when their guard was let down. Coupled with low vaccination rates due to insufficient vaccine supplies and a population that is suspicious of the vaccines, the situation had been made worse. S’pore just had Covid19 test kits on sale and some friends had told me that their Taiwan contacts are asking them to purchase and ship them over asap!!

We will start to allow dine-in at eateries starting on Monday after 5 weeks of restrictions, but only for 2 persons at a time. A friend just booked me for lunch on Monday 🙂 Household visitors limit had been raised to 5 this week from 2 for the last 4 weeks. Groups of 5 can go outdoors now. We adjust and do home dinners with 5 friends for now. The pandemic will evolve to become endemic over time, just like the annual flu which will remain with us for a long time. We will have to get used to it and adjust our lifestyles accordingly for a long time. Human nature is highly adaptive and will, in one way or another, be resourceful enough to push through to survive each permutation and variant.

I reached a personal milestone this week by completing my Data Science project for the IBM AI course I had been attending since Feb. Our team was working on it online via Zoom for the last 2 weeks and team presentations to the trainer happened on Wed. We will now go for the Data Science exam in 2 weeks which we are informed will be online now instead of in person at the test center. Our class of 19 had only met in person once at the last exam at end of May and we’re looking forward to meeting up again but the virus had other plans for us, I guess.