mNra In Reflection

 The late founder of contemporary Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, insisted on 300 per cent safety and not just 100 per cent in his mindset. 

mRna tech is said to be used in early stage developing other things apart from in Covid vaccines, but the vehement  unusual support and emphasis by various powers that are around the world to utilise it and support Pfizer has not gone unnoticed. 

Inactivated vaccines like Novavax were difficult to access in Australia at the height of the Covid years from 2021 to 2022 - and still are. 

Even if one still believes in Covid vaccinations, it is so obvious how mRna types are made more accessible and continually emphasised by the Canberra Federal Government from 2021 onwards. 

Scott Morrison ex PM in Camberra also showed gusty support for Pfizer vaccine production in Melbourne. 

Pfizer has hardly been evaluated comprehensively for its performance in Covid vaccines around the world.  Before the onslaught of Covid, the track record of Pfizer and other Big Pharmas has been doubtful at best. 

Sinovax vaccines are never available in Australia, not sure because of geopolitics or due to eliminating competition for mRna based vaccines. 

Experimental vaccine developments since 2021  are not over in assessment of their side effects, efficacy and long term implications. 

All the Big Pharmas offering Covid vaccines were hastily given blanket liability exemption.   The emergency conditions enveloping the world then have been lifted in 2023, so why are not such Big Pharmas been evaluated on a rational and balanced basis? 

The sudden stop by world wide authorities, especially from late 2022 and 2023 onwards,

to push for compulsory vaccinations re Covid - and the mysterious demention of the continuing infections - are so obvious. 

So the world's population can now be said to be injected with two main variations of activated and inactivated Covid vaccines....... 

just like the crowds on any street holding Apples and Androids. 

#yongkevthoughts

Pause for Thought

 

Oh, the habits of the past and what was a comforting routine is no more.

Many years ago, it was a casual relaxing pleasure to do something easy and different from weekdays, on a Saturday morning.  Simple regimes like going through the newspapers. Or catching up with people in a cafe. And driving like crazy just to try eating some hyped up dish, even before Instagrammable culinary.

On a small island, it was doable, until the escalating traffic jams made me think twice.

The pleasure and reward were to catch up with fellow human beings. The underlying pace was that it was unstructured, flexible and had delightful changes in store - surprise me!

Across the plains of Greater Sydney, I had to plan arrival and appointment times, for distances were greater to transverse and traffic jams even more congested at particular hours.

Now the newsagent is a sad shade of its past activity and future possibilities.  The dominance and ease of online publications have decimated the presence of print in magazines and newspapers.

I recall the high pleasure of reading subscribed weekly columns in print, to make sense of an ever changing world and events beyond my control.  Now, that is only but a distant memory. The advent of round the clock news and hijacked agendas in communication these days has made me turn off much of the media in whatever form.

I love visiting various suburbs, for many have a distinct character of their own in various layers of impression and experience.

I reckon each of us have cut down roaming the suburbs - and the big world - due to movement restrictions over the past two years.  We have inadvertently turned to nearby localities in our footprint - and this may not necessarily be a negative change.

Still there is the inherent instinct of the wanderer in each of us.  However, we no longer assume the right and convenience of greater mobility.  Our mindsets have inevitably transformed in rhe process.

Our eating habits may also have changed.  First there was a shift to more cook-ins and takeaways, when dining-in had or still have density limits and mindful physical distancing. 

The constant barage of almost daily telecast addresses by the powers that be has made me watch such institutionalised sessions to almost zilch.

We are increasingly told to comply and not question many important things.  The liberating joy of opening my mindset in reading books and magazines many years ago is no more. 

We cannot sneak out in the middle of the night to experience a secret pleasure.  Each of us are becoming more traceable through online devices and communication.

Yes, we still have the opportunity to embrace Nature in our own free time - and to physically sustain and manage our health with the wind blowing in our faces.  However, we must be ever conscious to build our mental resilience, more than ever in a changing world.

#yongkevthoughts

A Series of Operatic Acts

 The parade of comical obsessions continues.

First it was with hotel quarantines.

Then they moved on to no singing and no dancing.

Next was a fixation with toilet paper purchases.

Ah, they then were addicted to QR code scanning.

Contact tracing became a competitive sport, with boasts of even a gold standard 

Lockdown fever was not imagined......

Not satisfied, they penalised those who were detected 5km lingering away from home.

Soon disclosure of exposure spots was deemphasised and then disappeared.

Soon, it was to have proof of being "fully vaccinated" and the drive for individuals to have booster shots as soon as possible.

Then the fad came to let go and be totally free.

They emphasised case numbers are not important as dehumanisation continued. 

Hospitals, medical staff, small businesses and frontliners were left to deal with the reality and the mess. 

With opening up, it is the opera with testing proofs, validity of test results and how timely we receive them.

Now if we do not have symptoms, we are asked to not add to the testing queues.

We shudder when they change definitions of close contacts and lower standards and periods of self-isolation for infectees, frontliners and travellers.

The Sydney NYE gala and fireworks are back again in grander fashion.

Are we missing something here?

And so this is Christmas Again

 

For two years, we have complied.

We took it on the chin, limiting ourselves to the kilometre distance pronounced by authorities.  We got used to face mask, even when we instinctively knew we did not breathe normally when wearing them.

We made our hands dehydrated so often when we were asked to daily use hand sanitiser.

People who went on the ship cruise of their life time came home to die of infections caught aboard the high seas.  Elderly people in commercially run aged care facilities -  and crowded economically challenged households - were sitting ducks as well.

So many lost their livelihoods and incomes, while those who imposed public policy on the masses continued to have their pay packages protected.

Small businesses and retail had to close, earning pittance in suburbs all over, like through takeaways.  The big commercial players in town prospered as discretionary monies were over spent on groceries, homewares and online purchases, to name a few.

Taxpayer monies are said to subsidise more of multinational companies than the battler and struggling families in this Great Southern Land.

Family members and friends were separated, at times inhumanely, when celebrities and those with political connections were given exemptions in travel bans, compulsory quarantines and not touching each other.  It was becoming clear there was one rule for the privileged - and another for the rest.

We were told repeatedly that the advice of the science was always taken, but told to us so often, it was increasingly obvious it was not.  Medical people seemed to revolt but they were then managed.

Commercial hotels are not fit purposed as medivac venues in the centre of large cities.  Alpha and Delta breached whatever protocol that was practised in reality.

Christmas 2020 was a dog's breakfast of border controls, cancelled bookings, emerging red zone hotspots, arbitrary and egoistic decision making by the powers that are - plus lots of reactive ineffective measures after the enemy came in and was allowed to romp through the ripe greenfields for infection.

Frontliners became exhausted, discouraged, uninspired and/ or infected.  Protestors were manhandled and criticised.

Most of us were not allowed to go overseas, unless you got approval from travel exemption permits made at the discretion of Canberra.

Delta arrived in mid 2021 and struck cruelly across western Sydney - and Walgett in western NSW, with its large indigenous Australian community - when given ten days of permission to roam from Bondi.

Most of us hunkered down for lockdown till early October 2021, when we were told the saviour of vaccinations would sufficiently protect us.

Delta escaped from the gold standard contact tracing city of Sydney to Melbourne and Adelaide during the winter of our discontent in the Antipodes.

It was then early December 2021.  Omicron had invaded for a few weeks now - and now most of the movement restrictions, which we complied with faithfully for such a long time, were gone.  It is claimed most of the population has been double jabbed and can rest easy and feel protected on this achievement.

Yet in the days leading to Christmas this year, there has been a significant spike of infections, especially in the very state with the most movement freedoms.  We are next asked to take booster shots of vaccinations whose viability cannot be questioned.

Then someone blinks - and we are asked to face mask, observe two metre rules at public indoor hospitality venues and QR code again - and reminded to take the onus of self responsibility going forward.  

We were told long ago now about the gold standard of contact tracing.  When that collapsed mid year 2021, exposure sites were no longer publicly listed but we were still encouraged to test and test.

When Omicron arrived, we are no longer told clearly if new daily cases are Delta or Omicron.

We are now reprimanded to not go for PCR testing if we do not have symptoms, contrary to the encouragement to do so a few months ago.  It is emerging that resources and personnel are not sufficient to handle the demands on particular days.

We are now urged to live with that thing, reminded that everyone will eventually be infected and we are to just go out to spend money for the economy.  Why were we not told this earlier, especially having been put through the wringer of severe lockdowns, negative mental health and forced physical restrictions?

Somehow there is a trail of things seemingly made up along the way, or a strong gut feel that someone somewhere every time does not have any solid idea about this matter.  Or maybe it is all playing out to a predetermined script in some playbook only held and known by a few.

My jabbed arm is so sore.   I do not know what or whom to believe anymore.  I am going to deeply kiss in public after the NYE fireworks at Sydney Harbour - then line up for a test, feel compassion for our overworked frontline workers and do not trust the texted message of my test results, which can be incorrect (refer to the news of how SydPath pathology at St Vincents Hospital, Darlinghurst, east Sydney, first provided incorrect negative results to 400 persons when they are really Covid positive).

I am going to take self responsibility.  I make my own health risk assessment in being mindful or careless about the whole matter.  I will relish fresh ventilation and see politics behind every public health pronouncement.  I will self manage by using my own intelligence.  I will not be a plaything of Big Pharma, control freaks and snake oil salesmen.

#yongkevthoughts

We Need Less Uncertainty and More Proactive Action

What each of us, and our society, business and mental health needs most of all, is more certainty - all across the world. The way public health and epidemic control, in the past 2 years or so, has been handled can be abrupt, heavy handed and with lack of adequate communication with all stakeholders. Authorities swing their power to impose measures, likely using fear as an unnecessary tool or having unrevealed agendas behind the methods or plans utilised. Delta is not to be underestimated, but at the same time, it must not be manipulated for other purposes. Politicians and "the science" may have to work in a kind of knowledge vacuum, but that does not mean always taking a stare down approach. The public deserves more sincerity from our elected officials, who cannot just issue cherry picked information, but should be more open on what challenges there are in unknowns. Beware, in whatever pathway is offered, it is prudent to have a back up plan. The jarring way in which the powers that be, seem to react, instead of better planning ahead for more than one option, can be concerning. Delta, the varying performance of vaccinations, the lack of capability for the worst scenario....they can throw huge spanners in the works. Our authorities also need to take more heed of how Delta - and new mutated strains - can still create havoc, despite a city having high rates of vaccination roll out. There seems to be less open discussion about vaccinations than Covid itself. We need not repeat mistakes of others - cities and nations can learn from each other. There is often a lack of resources, staffing and infrastructure available, when not planning ahead for a variety of scenarios and outcomes. With an epidemic, what learned institutions, sitting politicians and quoted modeling say may not eventuate. Another risk is that political priorities, in any country or society put under the cloud of Delta, can still be more important than the application of common sense. The other huge concern is that in whatever pathway we are offered, government tends to pronounce broad strokes, without paying enough attention to implementation details - and keep allowing exemptions to what they want us to comply with. And the other often unsaid danger is to hype up the expectations of voters, without realistic outcomes. How many times have we been promised more travel bubbles, urged to pay for airline tickets months in advance and told to book for holidays?

Suppression, Manipulation or Elimination?

 

Do we manage an  infectious epidemic by the following key ways, or are there more alternatives?

1.   Allow continuing leakages of Covid 19 into the local community - and provide cause of having to allow for sufficient economic activity and minimal restriction of physical freedom for human beings.

2.   Allow continuing leakages of Covid 19 into the local community  - and manipulate the situation for socio-political purposes like increasing controls over the population for self empowerment purposes.

3.  Strictly disallow leakages of Covid 19 into the local community - go hard, go early to strictly impose lockdowns  aimed for short time periods and target for elimination of the Coronavirus>

4. Allow leakages of Covid 19 into the local community and raise expectations of relying on Vaccines as the saviour to be utilised on a mass scale.

5.  Always quote reliance on medical and scientific advice, but selectively take such ideas to fit into what authorities already want in Covid management.

6.  Allow leakages of Covid 19 from granting exemptions and exceptions, of rules otherwise imposed on the general population, for individuals and groups with special connections to the authorities. 

7.   Promote vaccination and testing preferences in covert collusion with Big Pharma, hidden agendas and for commercial gain.

8.   Do not allow leakages of Covid 19 into the local community at all - impose a few months of complete border closures.

9.   Do not allow leakages of Covid 19 into the local community by strictly banning entry of flight passenger arrivals from high risk countries.

10.  Do not allow leakages of Covid 19 into the local community by using more of ring fencing strategies over small hotspot areas where cases are detected, instead of imposing restrictions over other areas not yet affected by infections.

11.  Allow for spread of Covid 19 as the infections are already out of control.

12.  Allow for spread of Covid 19 to ultimately achieve herd immunity in the population. 

#yongkevthoughts

Musings about Controlling Covid - Australia January 2021

 

It is now the fourth wave of Covid spread in Sydney.
Once Covid leaks through from overseas arrivals on plane or ship to the local community, it is harder to contain, without hitting hard and early on focused movement restrictions for an interim period.

Once Covid reappears in the local community, better mental health is attained by confident and reassuring measures to stop its spread, much better than attending the much respected cricket games.

The risks of Covid spreading from the latest Avalon, Croydon and Berala clusters can impact on inadequate infrastructure and resources to optimally manage further infection break outs beyond the borders of the Sydney Basin.

In almost 4 weeks since the reporting of the Avalon cluster in Sydney's northern beaches, around 270 exposure sites have been traced for NSW and another hundred in Victoria - and counting.

Despite this reality, the free movement of people continues, even when for NSW residents, up to 200 infections have been identified in the state since the middle of December 2020.

In contrast, Hebei Province was totally locked down with severe movement restrictions immediately, after a lesser number of infections occured this past week in a city in its south.

The Queensland state government today declared a three day severe lockdown for a defined area of Brisbane and selected suburbs (instead of blanketing other non-relevant areas)  from 6pm their time, just after a quarantine hotel cleaner was confirmed to have contracted the rather more infectious UK mutated strain of Covid.

Most Australian states have imposed hard border controls to prevent NSW residents from coming, perhaps echoing their serious concerns on how relaxed the NSW government has been reacting to Covid cases and its spread in its own backyard.

A swift and strict lockdown for a short period can be more effective to dispel uncertainty than an approach wavering on varying daily case figures.

Contact tracing and extensive testing are only ways of managing public health after the Covid has bolted in.

Prevention is best, by stopping leakages. It is effective to stop overseas arrivals, especially on a temporary basis, emphatically in view of much more infectious versions of Covid jumping inside the country to locally transmit through direct contact staff and transport drivers without adequate PPE physically in touch with infected arrivals.

Local individuals working face on with overseas arrivals need to face a more stringent regime of daily testing and not being able to spread Covid back to their families, vulnerable work sites like aged care homes and indoor venues like shopping and medical hubs.

AEDT 4 pm, 8 January 2021, Sydney NSW.

#yongkevthoughts
#coronavirus

Threesomes with a Difference

 

Singapore is surrounded by a peninsular, islands big and small, trading routes, channels and seas. It is an island itself, albeit with reclaimed land fringes, but it is also an island beyond the geographical meaning of the term.

Singapore thrives on differentiation.  Its dynamics, governance drivers and ability to grow thrive on offering something which its neighbours cannot, to the same degree.

Myanmar just had a military coup.  Vietnam is communist, together with Laos.  The Phillippines and Kampuchea have had more tumultous experiences in politics.  Thailand and Malaysia are technically constitutional monarchies in varying forms.  Timur-Leste and Papua New Guinea became fledging democracies after independence, but have not reached maturity in governance.  Indonesia is a federation of several cultural regions that has so much land size and population in comparison to the city state of Singapore.

So what captivates the rest of South-east Asia to offerings by Singapore?  Reassurance, relative stability, better reliance and constant progress - just like Switzerland to Europe.  Not just in being a transport hub, infrastructure provider, banker, shipping safety harbour, medical and education excellence provider, a place with good social cohesion structure,  technology facilitator, military capability displayer and strategic planning thinker - Singapore is ever the middleman, broker and trader.  As long there are transactions to be churned and there are problems elsewhere,  there is commission, value add and profit to be made, as Singapore beckons the talented, the visionary and the adventurer.

Both Indian and Chinese cultures have significantly infused the South-east Asian make up for umpteen years, before the arrival of Islam and Colonialism added further layers of social and political influences.  Today's Singapore can be said to be a microcosm of this historical accumulation and interaction - and yet the thinking and actions of its leaders and society stand apart.

So what abhors its neighbours about Singapore?   Perhaps the very same things that attracts them -  the better quality of life, its persistently stronger currency, its First World economic prowess.   Its sheer dependence on migrant labour in construction, house help and jobs its citizens will not do can cause an Achilles heel which makes it vulnerable to supply forces from its neighbours.

Singapore, small as it is, buys more arms than Australia, Indonesia or New Zealand.

Singapore has no home grown traditional royalty aristocrats to pander to.   It has maintained to a higher intensity the use of the English language and promoted the prominence of Mandarin spoken amongst its population.  Its leaders impose a strict political discipline for its citizens, resulting in a social order that contrasts with the waves of political instability of its neighbours.   Singapore's ensuing ability to hugely attract international business and talent belies its absence of natural resources.

Likewise, Australia and New Zealand can also empathise with how contemporary Singapore feels.
Both these two Antipodean countries find themselves different from their neighbours in the Asia-Pacific hinterland and ocean backyard.

The three nations have a Westminster based system of government.   They are the outcomes of British trading, military and expansionist initiatives from the 18th to the 20th centuries.   They have attained an economic status which is the envy of their neighbours, short of China, Japan and South Korea.   Each of these three nations were also built on the contributions of historical migrants.
They all offer a high measure of social stability, governance and economic wealth, but Singapore has the lowest taxes.

One lacks land size, another has too much and the third can be so remote from the rest of the world.  Both New Zealand and Singapore governments dare to stake their more independent positions in contemporary geopolitics. The Australian government continues to not seize an opportunity to assert its own refreshing values in international diplomacy and political moves.

In terms of wartime risks, Singapore geographically lies in a highly likely flashpoint, while Australia is most vulnerable in its exposed northern coasts and its affiliation with the South Pacific.

Nww Zealand has taken huge consistent steps to embrace its Indigenous heritage, when compared with its cross-Tasman neighbour.  Singapore is most conscious of balancing the implications of its multiracial population.

Singapore is what it is today, despite not having any natural resources.  Australia is blessed with many natural resources and yet its financial centres are behind that of Singapore.   All three countries utilise high levels of immigration to supplant population growth (before Covid 19).

Australia and New Zealand have proved to be bastions of relative stability, governance and reliability like Singapore.  They have attracted investors as places to park excess funds in search of higher returns, buy properties as back up refuges and place children for higher education.  Where people originate from nations with political instability but varying levels of economic opportunities, all  three countries can be heaven sent as lower risk alternatives for escape to in the worst of times.

#yongkevthoughts

Too Late, Too Little

 

15 January 2021 - It is said, in Los Angeles County, California, that a person dies of Covid 19 every eight minutes.

The quality and effectiveness of your political leaders in decision making inevitably affects your life, even if you do everything otherwise possible, especially in an epidemic.

The reality at ground level is at best inconvenience.  Worse are the long term negative effects suffered by Covid 19 survivors, the battered impact on front line and public service workers and the raging number of fatalities as various strains of the latest Coronavirus rampage throughout so many communities.

"Out of control" is being unable to cope with an overstrained health support system, the decimation of prospects and hope, the lingering imposition of uncertainty,   unnecessary Covid leakage opportunities, politicisation prioritised over other requirements and headless chicken reaction when contact tracing is no longer viable.

And yes, mass vaccination and roll out issues may not fulfil all their promises.

When reality is tarred with incompetence, every new day can be more Covid deadly than the day before.

#yongkevthoughts
#coronavirus

Haphazard and Hopeless in Haymarket

Rough edges, sudden bumps, grey blotches.
Unfriendly fences, bored workers, negative vibes.
Paths keep changing, dust in the air and no one cares.
There is a warzone for quiet battles, long delays in completion and accumulating hidden costs.

The character of a once vibrant place has been degraded.
Its denizens wander like zombies, the throbbing soul of the earth beneath scarred.
The promise, the beauty and the delivery as seemingly hopeless now as snow on Sydney streets.

"Haphazard and Hopeless in Haymarket"
Laying new tram tracks, Sydney 2017-2019

25 Million and Counting

The stats people say Australia's population reach 25 million by the first Monday of August 2018, roughly the size of a major conurbation in China - the greater Beijing area.

Are we a nation still consumed in worrying proportions by the 5Ds, an observation first mooted in the 1990s?

States of sedation or elation induced by drugs, drunkenness, driving, dependencies and deals? Our continuing take up of smart phones, opiates, coffee, sugar, oligopolies, poor compliance with regulation, political mischief and short sighted planning can make each of us look like a potential total wreck today, just like a cross between a potentially extinct elephant and our native koala, looking having a serious hang over with bites on our surprised demeanour.

More people are moving to outside Australia, but then this is countered by others moving in. It can all be attributed to the dynamics of a nation with both high levels of shortcomings and attractive features, depending on the eye of the beholder. The majority of the population has always had an immigrant background, only that the demographic emphasis has changed from the White Australian policy to varying levels of diversity that now significantly embraces migrants from China and India.

The impact on the continuing capacity and viability of the related supporting infrastructure and processes in education delivery, health care, transport, utility cost and other aspects of daily life can never be under estimated, especially if councils and State Governments continue to have a more reactive rather a than a proactive response.

Have standards of civility and personal behaviour changed with more people? Have the recent immigrants of the past decade been more willing to integrate into] the mainstream culture or become more differentiated in their own silo daily habits and mindset? Do residents see this nation as a long term place to settle in or just a pit stop in a more mobile world? The increased demand on resources from a growing population obviously creates an effect on costings and supply variables, so the cost of living, variety of talent to choose from and the number of community interaction issues rise in numbers as well. Do we feel safer for ourselves and at home?

And yet each of us must be somehow grateful for the freedom of expression; the relatively clean environment; the balance of personal and community equality; the emancipation in the lifestyle you choose; and the experience of spaciousness - the 5 Es.

#yongkevthoughts