TR EMERITUS

During the past two weeks, about 3,000 tests are carried out each day with the foreign workers living in dormitories. About 750 are found to be infected. This represents an infection rate of 25%. Many people panicked and worried about the 750 new cases (or thereabouts) that are identified each day. I like to ask the question - what happened to the other 75%? Surely, if the virus is so contagious, the foreign workers are living so densely together, and a large number are already infected, we should expect 100% to be infected? I have positive news to share with you. I read Bill Gates paper and learned about the different types of tests. The tests that is carried out on the foreign workers is the PCR test. It will show a positive result for people who still carry the virus (i.e. during the incubation period and when they have symptom) but excludes the people who passed the incubation period and did not fall sick. I reason that most of the 75% had already been infected and have not been sick. They are likely to be immune now. There is a separate test, called the serology test, that identifies the people who have been infected, and include those who have the virus now. This test will catch a larger number of people. This serology or antibody test was carried out on a random sample of residents in New York City. It identified that 21% of the people have already been infected. I suggest that the task force should carry out the antibody test on a sample of the 75% to determine if they are already immune. If my reasoning is correct, we should be able to allow these 75% to return to work in the community, without worry that they will spread the virus. I want to share another good news. Over 10,000 foreign workers have been tested to be positive during the past three weeks since the circuit breaker started. Most of them are being housed in isolation facilities. Only a few were are sick are sent for treatment in hospital. In spite of this large number of new cases, the number of patients in intensive care, i.e. ICU, has kept below 25. This means that none of them have been severely sick. After 21 or 28 days of isolation, we should expect to see large number of the infected foreign workers to be discharged from the isolation centers and hospitals. I believe that the covid-19 virus remain quite mild in Singapore. We will not see a large increase in deaths. Tan Kin Lian        Read More →

Three days ago I wrote how Singapore’s former US Ambassador, Chan Heng Chee, while attempting to defend her master the PM and deny PAP culpability for the way Covid-19 returned with a vengeance (after our leaders were basking in a glow of global approbation) , had unwittingly in any irony-free manner laid the blame squarely on Lee Hsien Loong’s shoulders. I will repeat her words again here: “Singapore is the densest city and the densest country in the world … We are denser than Hong Kong, and dense cities have a problem dealing with epidemics, with pandemics.” Perhaps she should also said we have the densest Government in the world. Now, in an opinion piece in the New York Times, written by David Rubin (director of PolicyLab at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia) and Paul Offit (director of the Vaccine Education Centre at the same hospital) comes further research which supports her hypothesis: Models we created at PolicyLab at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania, tracking and forecasting outbreaks in 211 counties in 46 states, as well as in the District of Columbia, revealed that crowding and population density, whether in densely populated areas in New York City or a meatpacking plant in South Dakota, are the most important factor in determining the havoc the virus can wreak. After accounting for age distribution and health issues it was clear that risk not only of infection but of death broke between two groups: those in densely crowded areas, and everyone else. They go on to say: Large, densely populated cities are going to need a more cautious plan [for reopening] . This is not just because more crowded areas increase the risk of spread, but also because we’re learning that crowding itself may also affect the death rate. The relationship between the amount of virus to which one is initially exposed and the severity of the illness is found in most infectious diseases. Models assessing outcomes from the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic reveal that the likelihood of death was dependent upon the number of infected individuals with whom that person came into contact. When a family is infected by chickenpox, the second child to contract the virus often becomes more seriously ill, presumably because they have been exposed to more of the virus. The PAP have for decades used the same tired 1950s W. A. Lewis economic growth model “Economic Development with Unlimited Supplies of Labour”. This was the blueprint for Winsemius’s economic development plan which Goh Keng Swee and LKY adopted. Once Singapore’s own reservoir of cheap labour was exhausted the Government looked at the rest of Asia and just expanded the plan to include the neighbouring countries, China, Bangladesh India and Pakistan. In the absence of a minimum wage it depressed wages for unskilled labour to levels well below those of other developed countries. In 1990 Goh Chok Tong famously promised Singaporeans a Swiss standard of living within ten years. Thirty years later the Swiss minimum wage is $30 an hour while elderly Singaporeans work at McDonalds for $3 an hour. If the Government had compensated the losers from their low productivity cheap labour policies then there might have been some justification for them. But instead of providing universal health care or free university education, the Government used these policies to generate a huge surplus which Singaporeans did not share in, with the justification that the reserves were there “for a rainy day.” Like the grapes of Tantalus, they have remained forever out of reach. However the supposed strength of our reserves is something the PM points to when he seeks justification for his autocratic rule.along with productivity-free economic growth that has failed to give us even an Italian standard of living, let alone Swiss. Now the rainy day has arrived. Singaporeans should be able to see that tGovernment support, while unprecedented, lags significantly behind that extended to citizens of other countries like the UK and the US, despite their high level of Government indebtedness. Now Singaporeans can see that as well as not benefiting from PAP policies that have significantly reduced their quality of life, these policies now pose a significant threat to their health and even their lives. The Government will be unable to raise the CB anytime soon because in Singapore’s overcrowded conditions it will risk a swift return of the pandemic. We need a new Government and a new social compact, one that benefits our people rather than enabling huge secret salaries and wealth for the PM’s wife and a shadowy network of relatives and cronies.   Kenneth Jeyaretnam * The author blogs at https://kenjeyaretnam.com/   .  Read More →

Before the coronavirus, there was still some part of me that felt that there was still some redeeming qualities to the PAP. However, this coronavirus has showed me as well as all of us their true colours. How they blindly give out the wrong advice without shame, how they refused to admit their mistakes even when they were wrong. How they kept flipping prata and trying to pervert the truth. I have no more trust and respect left for this government. Now, voting them out is no longer just an option, it is no longer just a choice, it is a necessity. It is indeed sad that more people could not have seen this earlier. All the warning signs were there - them changing the constitution at their whim and fancy. Right now, it is no longer a game, there are lives at stake. When our policymakers screw up, people get infected, people die. They were so busy planning for a covid election, they forgot all about the foreign workers. How can you continue to expect people like us to turn a blind eye to the going ons in this country? How can we turn a blind eye to the snobbish and arrogant behaviour of Ho Ching who doesn't care about the people who are suffering on the ground? For how long are we supposed to suffer the injustice of being led by incompetent people, who continue to praise themselves to the sky despite their dismal performance? These people who shamelessly use our money to buy awards and recognition for themselves? People, something is very very wrong. We need to change. We must. Thus, I appeal to you, please, don't make another mistake this time round. Don't be blinded by the cash handouts given out by the government the past month or two. These are your own money, and these are monies they intend to claw back by raising GST. This is why, once the elections come around in September (originally scheduled in June but now pushed back to September), you must vote for the alternative. Studies after studies and time after time has proved that absolute power corrupts absolutely. We cannot allow them to continue their rampage and their destruction of our country for their own personal agendas and gains. We have to break the chain and stop this. We need to change our course, for we are now like a ship headed for an iceberg. Our incompetent captain is sleeping at the wheel. He believes wrongly that the system he has built up is impenetrable and invincible. But the coronavirus has brought this government to its knees. People, enough is enough. We Singaporeans have been oppressed are now sick and tired of all the games the PAP has been playing. Their time has come. They are done. It is now time to put in place people like Dr Chee Soon Juan, Dr Tan Cheng Bock, Dr Ang Yong Guan, Dr Paul Tambyah, who actually have some sense and some idea of what they are talking about to lead us through the crisis. Let us not waste time fighting each other anymore. Let's put the right people in charge, so we can focus on fighting the coronavirus scourge. This is only the first wave of the virus, and the PAP is already trying to give us a false sense of security. A leopard will never change its spots. We need to get rid of such irresponsible people. Otherwise, they are only going to lead the entire country down the gutter. If we continue to follow them like blind mice, we are really doomed. No!   Saraphine Ang      Read More →