Trudeau government invoked cabinet secrecy on COVID quarantine hotel decision, shielding it even from court - "The federal government claimed cabinet confidentiality over its discussions on COVID-19 mandatory quarantine hotel rules , shielding what was behind the decision even from the scrutiny of the Chief Justice of the Federal Court at a trial challenging the constitutionality of the controversial rules... Lawyers for the applicants told Crampton the expensive, forced quarantine stays amounted to detention that was arbitrary, with no presumption of innocence, no ability to be judicially reviewed, imposed on citizens not notified of their right to counsel. Sayeh Hassan, a lawyer for the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, said there were less invasive alternatives, such as targeting public health attention to those most vulnerable to the virus, and not “the thousands and thousands of healthy travellers” who can quarantine on their own."
Only irresponsible anti-vaxxer plague rats think transparency is important
Pandemic rolled over the charter: How COVID-19 restrictions tested Canadians' rights - "“The reality is that, given that judges are not specialists in public health, they have shown an overwhelming tendency to defer to policymaker’s decisions, and they’ve been very reticent to step in and invalidate them,” said Joanna Baron, the executive director of the Canadian Constitution Foundation. “Rights have to have teeth. And I think that judges, they’ve erred too far on the side of deferring to government.”... Because of the pace of the pandemic — a restriction might have been lifted before it gets a court hearing — many issues haven’t even come before courts or received charter analysis. In the United States, said Zwibel, the Supreme Court has heard stacks of COVID-related court cases. “We just don’t have a system that lets that happen at that kind of speed. And the speed is important, because we’ve had rules that change so frequently that by the time you get something in front of a court, the rules that you’re challenging might no longer be in place”... “You can see a sort of draining away of public enthusiasm and public perception of the legitimacy of the charter’s protections”... Just like the courts after 9/11 slowly became less willing to accept government arguments, as normalcy slowly returns, or the justifications for severe restrictions weaken, the courts may become more likely to strenuously question infringements upon rights."
Hong Kong health experts defend gov't decision to kill hamsters and small animals over Covid-19 fears - "respiratory disease expert David Hui said the chances of the virus spreading from hamsters to humans is “very high” despite a lack of evidence of animal-to-human transmission internationally since the pandemic began more than two years ago... The government said on Tuesday that it would move to kill 2,000 hamsters and other small animals following an untraceable outbreak linked to a Little Boss pet shop employee."
The cost of zero covid
Covid-19: Hong Kong tightens social distancing - bars, gyms, pools closed, dine-in ends 6pm - "Hong Kong’s Covid-19 social distancing measures will be tightened over fears of a community outbreak, Chief Executive Carrie Lam announced on Wednesday, as she said the city was on “the verge” of a fifth wave of infections."
I guess their problem was they weren't strict enough
Singapore business events bounce back post COVID, Hong Kong flounders
Hong Kong's zero-COVID strategy under pressure as cases soar - "Health Secretary Sophia Chan said over the weekend that she expects cases to rise "exponentially". The former British colony has become one of the most isolated cities in the world, with flights down around 90 per cent due to strict coronavirus regulations and schools, playgrounds, gyms as well as most other venues shut. Restaurants close at 6pm, while most people, including the majority of civil servants, are working from home. The economic and psychological tolls from the hardline approach are rapidly rising, with measures becoming more draconian than those first implemented in 2020. Government quarantine facilities are also nearing their maximum as authorities struggle to keep up with their rigid contact tracing scheme. Authorities hold daily briefings providing details on each infected person including where they went and ate. As cases surge, however, methods including scouring credit card statements and transport records to identify close contacts are far tougher. There are likely hundreds of transmission chains in the community... Health experts said the city's current strategy of shutting itself off as the rest of the world shifts to living with coronavirus, is not sustainable. The official Chinese Communist Party newspaper, the People's Daily, said in an editorial on Monday that a "dynamic zero infection" strategy is the scientific option for Hong Kong, suggesting that no change is being planned... Two pet cats tested positive for coronavirus, the government said on Friday, as it urged pet owners to avoid kissing animals... There have been shortages of imported foreign food and cost increases due to tight air restrictions."
Hong Kong's Covid-Zero Strategy on Brink of Collapse Under Omicron - Bloomberg - "“The horse has bolted, and I don’t think that the government is going to be able to get on top of this,” said David Owens, a family medicine specialist and honorary clinical assistant professor at the University of Hong Kong, where he has collaborated on Covid research. “This disease is just too transmissible.” Chief Executive Carrie Lam is unlikely to give up completely on efforts to eradicate the virus while Chinese President Xi Jinping adheres to that policy in the mainland, but her government can’t deploy the blunt tools that China has used to lock down millions of people in cities like Xi’an and Tianjin. The measures Hong Kong has deployed so far, including lockdowns of apartment buildings, closures of schools, restaurants, gyms and cinemas, and vaccine mandates, are already straining the limit of the city’s resources. Without the ability to escalate measures, as China has done, or to back away from the Covid-Zero goal, as Singapore, Australia and others have, Hong Kong has no clear path forward. “There is no way for a full-city lockdown to be sustained for any appreciable period to allow termination of transition links,” said Leung Chi-chiu, a former chairman of the Hong Kong Medical Association’s advisory committee on communicable diseases, adding that Hong Kong doesn’t have the testing capacity or community infrastructure for mainland-style lockdowns. “Without these, we will die faster than the virus,” he said... The restrictions have battered Hong Kong’s reputation for openness and frustrated business lobby groups... Thousands of residents were locked inside their public housing apartments for days... after more than two years of focus on keeping daily cases at or near zero, officials haven’t communicated any clear exit plan for the pandemic, and it’s unlikely that Lam’s government can formulate one without Beijing’s sign-off. With China firmly wedded to Covid Zero, the city’s health authorities will likely focus on more testing and lockdowns, said Nicholas Thomas, an associate professor at the City University of Hong Kong who has edited several books on pandemics and politics. He added that having a large number of people innoculated with the less-effective Sinovac Biotech Ltd. vaccine is an additional hurdle"
‘Zero COVID’ Hong Kong grapples with vegetable shortages - "Supplies of vegetables are running low in Hong Kong, with shoppers scrambling to buy whatever they can find as the government blamed a resurgence of COVID-19 for a drop in deliveries of fresh produce from the mainland."
Hong Kong Risks Everything With ‘Impossible’ Covid-Zero Policy - Bloomberg - "The result is growing frustration among local residents, expatriates and business leaders with a government seen to be pursuing a futile policy in the hopes of appeasing China’s ruling Communist Party. Analysts at Fitch Ratings this week became the latest to cut their 2022 forecasts for Hong Kong’s economy, saying the city’s delayed pandemic recovery makes it among the weakest of the 120 economies it tracks. “I believe most government officials know it’s impossible to maintain Covid Zero, but they can’t help because they have to follow China’s policy,” said Danny Lau, honorary chairman of the Hong Kong Small and Medium Enterprises Association. “Hong Kong is becoming more and more like a ghost city.”... While almost 82% of the city’s residents aged 12 or over have received at least one vaccine dose, that figure falls to just 35% of those aged 80 or above, making them more vulnerable to serious illness... “Hong Kong is in the worst possible situation where it is closed both to the rest of China and to the rest of the world,” said Douglas Arner, a law professor at the University of Hong Kong and an expert on the city’s financial system... Even before the latest outbreak, businesses were feeling the pain. In the third quarter, 11% of commercial spaces in Hong Kong’s four main shopping districts was empty, compared with 7% in the same quarter in 2019, according to property agent Midland IC&I Ltd. Retail sales in December were 26% below the level seen three years ago before the unrest... Flights bans from eight countries including the U.S. and U.K. have curbed the supply of fruit, flowers and food products. Making matters worse, anti-virus controls in mainland China meant truck drivers were unable to re-enter the city this week, prompting the supply of fresh produce to fall as much as 70%... The increasingly overloaded health-care system is forcing the government to relax measures that were some of the world’s strictest. Just over a month ago, more than 200 diners at a single restaurant were sent to a quarantine camp because of a cluster. Now that camp is being used to hold confirmed patients with mild symptoms, while close contacts can isolate at home. So far three people have died during the current outbreak, all aged more than 70. With Covid Zero, Hong Kong is attempting to do what no other city has done without months in full lockdown, and none have achieved that with the omicron variant. The government’s strategy makes less sense in the face of omicron and should consider reviewing it, said Anders Yuen, chairman of the Association of Hong Kong Nursing Staff. “The approach only works when there are few Covid cases,” said Yuen. “It’s completely non-sustainable when there are over 1,000 cases a day.”"
Hong Kong Defends Letting JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon Skip Quarantine - Bloomberg - "Hong Kong let JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon skip the city’s 21-day hotel quarantine because of the size of the bank’s operations in the Asian financial hub, saying his trip was relatively low risk... The city’s government granted Dimon an individual exemption from quarantine rules, Lam said. That’s despite recent efforts to do away with any exemptions in order to convince Chinese officials that the former British colony was tightening its virus control measures before any border opening with the mainland. In August, the government granted an exemption to actor Nicole Kidman who had flown into the city to film a TV series, prompting a brief outcry from frustrated residents who have been forced to pay out for expensive hotel stays. HSBC Holdings Plc Chairman Mark Tucker passed through a three-week quarantine the same month."
BA.2: New omicron sub-variant could prolong UK epidemic, warn experts
Covid hysteria will never end as there will always be new variants
Winnipeg police chief declares state of emergency due to COVID-19 staff shortage - "There are currently 90 active COVID-19 cases within the police service, and 170 personnel are on COVID-19-related leave, Smyth said at an afternoon news conference. There are roughly 1,900 people in the police service... The service isn't considering allowing officers with mild COVID-19 symptoms to come to work, as other sectors like health care have, Smyth said. The City of Winnipeg is also sticking to the 10-day isolation period for employees who do have COVID-19... Between 97 and 98 per cent of all Winnipeg police officers are fully vaccinated"
Covid hysteria means the world will grind to a halt as everyone will need to isolate
The Post Millennial on Twitter - "Tucker Carlson: "As of today there are more accused pedophiles at CNN than Americans who have died of the so-called Omicron variant that is supposed to be so deadly.""
Non–COVID-19 excess deaths by age and gender in the United States during the first three months of the COVID-19 pandemic - "There have been more excess deaths in several age group and gender cohorts during the first three months of the pandemic, beyond direct deaths directly attributable to COVID-19. These non–COVID-19 excess deaths are most apparent in the 25- to 44-year age group for women and 15- to 54-year age group for men."
Lockdowns killed more than covid in the US in the first 3 months. Of course the covid hystericist response will be to claim that without the lockdowns, even more people would have died, but we know from the abundant research that lockdowns don't reduce covid deaths. Besides which, if you look at later death waves, restrictions were much lighter but deaths didn't skyrocket
Why Are Vaccinated Americans Still Worrying About COVID? - "Anxiety over COVID-19 might be an unhappy side effect of getting vaccinated against the disease. I'm kidding, but you could be forgiven for drawing that tongue-in-cheek conclusion from a new Morning Consult/New York Times poll showing that vaccinated (and boosted) Americans are about twice as likely to say they are "very" or "somewhat" concerned about "getting sick from COVID-19 within the next year." That is, of course, the exact opposite of what the actual science tells us... it's impossible to discount the role that poor policy making is playing here. Places like New York City and Washington, D.C., that have imposed or reimposed mask and/or vaccine mandates in recent months also have high vaccination rates. But the ongoing layering of new rules leaves the impression that residents must escalate their anxiety accordingly—and, no surprise, that anxiety may be captured in polls like this one. On Friday night, I attended a concert at a small venue in the suburbs of D.C. Per the club's own rules, not government mandate, everyone had to show a vaccine card to enter, and some people chose to wear masks during the show too. The headliner, who at one point described himself as "so vaccinated I could spit in your mouth and give you immunity," actually thanked the audience for coming to the show despite the fact that it felt a little bit like we were doing something illegal. It was a funny moment, but a telling one too. Everyone there was vaccinated, we were engaging in an activity that was as close to normal as possible, and yet the artist felt it necessary to acknowledge the weirdness of being normal human beings on a Friday night... Endless anxiety, on the other hand, is not healthy for individuals or society as a whole. Politicians who continue to stoke that anxiety by refusing to free the children from masks, endlessly moving the COVID goalposts, or forbidding individuals and businesses from determining their own levels of risk tolerance are not helping right now."
Evidence that many vaccinated people don't believe the vaccines work
COVID-19: Quebec to force unvaccinated to pay 'significant' financial penalty - "About 10 per cent of adult Quebecers aren't vaccinated, but they represent about half of all patients in intensive care, Legault said, adding that the unvaccinated should be forced to pay for the extra burden they are placing on the health-care system. "I think right now it's a question of fairness for the 90 per cent of the population who made some sacrifices," Legault said. "I think we owe them this kind of measure.""
Trying to pit the vaccinated against the unvaccinated. Classy (this was later reversed)
This is a good way for politicians to avoid accountability - by scapegoating a minority
Quebec to impose 'significant' financial penalty against people who refuse to get vaccinated - "the Canadian Civil Liberties Association slammed the idea of the tax and asked the Legault government to abandon it. Legault "is proposing a direct penalty for being unvaccinated – compelling individuals to undergo medical treatment," wrote Cara Zwibel, the association's general counsel. "Our Charter recognizes individual autonomy over our bodies and medical decisions. Allowing the government to levy fines on those who do not agree with the government’s recommended medical treatment is a deeply troubling proposition," she wrote. "To justify this kind of restriction on constitutionally protected rights, the government must provide clear and compelling evidence and demonstrate that there were no other reasonable alternatives."... Quebec's Health Minister, Christian Dubé, explained at the news conference Tuesday that even though half the province's hospitalizations are secondary cases, Quebec will reach a critical level of hospital capacity in the next five to 10 days, based on predictions from the Institut national d’excellence en santé et services sociaux (INESSS)."
From January 11
Hospital numbers stabilizing in Quebec
From January 20. Excellent modelling with impeccable accuracy, once again!
Quebec physicians group says anti-vax tax would be 'discriminatory and unfair' | Toronto Sun - "An organization composed of physicians dedicated to maintaining Quebec’s public health care system has voiced its opposition to the Legault government’s proposed “health contribution” that would be imposed on those who remain unvaccinated for non-medical reasons . Médecins québécois pour le régime public on Wednesday described the idea as “discriminatory and unfair” and a “slippery slope” toward the commodification of health care. Dr. Mathieu Isabel, spokesperson for the 500-member group, said that behind the common image of the unvaccinated lies the reality of the homeless, those with mental health issues and immigrants who speak neither French nor English. The group also worries that the proposed “contribution” could open the door to a breach in the public consensus that everyone should benefit from the same medical treatment regardless of whatever individual risk they may present."
Good luck to the fat, smokers and alcoholics
This is why many Americans are against universal healthcare
Quebec premier drops idea of 'anti-vax tax,' citing need to preserve social peace | Toronto Sun - "With support for COVID-19 pandemic measures slipping and threats of protests similar to the trucking convoys in Ottawa being organized, Legault sounded a hasty retreat on the tax, which had been criticized on many fronts and made international headlines... opposition leaders ripped into the premier, accusing him of floating the idea as a diversion from his poor management of the pandemic."
Death and Lockdowns - "When the 50 states are ranked according to the stringency of their lockdown restrictions, you can see one obvious pattern: the more restrictive the state, the higher the unemployment rate. But there’s no pattern in the rate of Covid-19 mortality. International comparisons yield similar results. One shows that countries with more stringent lockdowns tend to have slightly higher levels of Covid-19 mortality. Another suggests that European countries with stricter lockdowns have performed worse economically while also suffering higher rates of excess mortality. It’s true, as lockdown proponents argue, that many factors could confound these broad comparisons. Some places are more vulnerable to Covid-19 because of geographic and demographic variables, and so may be more likely to impose lockdowns in response to a surge. But other methods of measuring the effects of lockdowns have also been inconclusive. Some researchers reported early in the pandemic that lockdowns slowed viral spread and reduced mortality, but those conclusions were based on mathematical models with widely varying—and sometimes quite dubious—assumptions about what would have happened without lockdowns. Meantime, more than two dozen studies have challenged the effectiveness of lockdowns, relying mainly not on mathematical models but on trends in Covid-19 cases and deaths. Studies have repeatedly shown that school closures have little or no impact on viral spread and mortality. By comparing regions and countries, researchers have found that trends in infections were similar regardless of whether there were mandated business closures or stay-at-home-orders. It seems intuitively obvious that lockdowns would save lives by reducing social interactions and therefore the spread of the virus, but there are other consequences. Lockdowns force people to spend more time indoors, where viruses spread more easily. By preventing younger people from socializing and being exposed to the virus, a lengthy lockdown slows the build-up of herd immunity in this low-risk population, so eventually the virus may infect and kill more vulnerable older people. Last spring and summer, public-health officials attributed California’s low rate of Covid-19 mortality to its stringent lockdown policies, and they predicted disaster for Florida, which reopened early and has remained one of the least-restrictive states. But California’s lockdowns didn’t prevent a severe outbreak in the winter. While the state’s Covid-19 mortality rate remains slightly below the national average, its overall rate of excess mortality since the pandemic began is well above the national average. In Florida, by contrast, the rate of excess mortality is below the national average and significantly below California’s, especially among younger adults."
A Failed Experiment - "After analyzing 23 countries and 25 U.S. states with widely varying policies, Andrew Atkeson of UCLA and fellow economists found that the mortality trend was similar everywhere once the disease took hold: the number of daily deaths rose rapidly for 20 to 30 days, and then fell rapidly. Similar conclusions were reached in analyses of Covid deaths in Europe. By studying the time lag between infection and death, Simon Wood of the University of Edinburgh concluded that infections in Britain were already declining before the nation’s lockdown began in late March. In an analysis of Germany’s 412 counties, Thomas Wieland of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology found that infections were waning in most of the country before the national lockdown began and that the additional curfews imposed in Bavaria and other states had no effect... No politician wants to admit publicly that young people’s lives are more valuable than older people’s because they have more healthy years remaining, but using this guide is the most sensible way to allocate health resources—and it’s long been favored by some of the same progressive health-care experts now clamoring for lockdowns. By the QALY measure, the lockdowns must be the most costly—and cost-ineffective—medical intervention in history because most of the beneficiaries are so near the end of life... In Britain, a study led by the Imperial College economist David Miles concluded that even if you gave the lockdown full credit for averting the most unrealistic worst-case scenario (the projection of 500,000 British deaths, more than ten times the current toll), it would still flunk even the most lenient QALY cost-benefit test. No one wants to hasten the demise of the elderly, but they and other vulnerable people can be shielded without shutting down the rest of the society, as Sweden and other countries have demonstrated... Scott Atlas at the Hoover Institution and researchers at Swansea University independently calculated that the lockdowns would ultimately cost more years of life than Covid-19 in the United States and Britain, and the toll seems certain to be worse in poor countries. The World Bank estimates that the coronavirus recession could push 60 million people into extreme poverty, which inevitably means more disease and death."
The "correlation isn't causation" crowd fall for post-hoc ergo propter hoc when it suits them
Survey finds a growing divide between double-vaxxed and boosted people - "A new survey suggests a widening gap between the pandemic views of people who have opted to get a COVID-19 vaccine booster and those who are holding steady with only two shots. A web panel survey carried out by Leger for the Association for Canadian Studies shows 67 per cent of people with a booster dose who responded are afraid of contracting COVID-19, compared to just 52 per cent of those with two doses... 82 per cent of boosted respondents said they supported vaccine mandates at shopping malls and retail outlets, compared to only 57.8 per cent of people with two doses... People who received a booster shot were also more likely to respond that governments should not lift COVID-19 restrictions, at 85 per cent, compared to 71.5 per cent of people with two doses... Of those with two doses who say they don’t want a third, 25.5 per cent said they don’t believe a booster would work, and 14 per cent said they felt that two shots are enough."
The double vaccinated are the new irresponsible far-right anti-science anti-vaxx plague rats
Let it all out! Group of 'exhausted' moms gather in a field for a 20-minute 'SCREAMING session'
When your self-induced hysteria gets to you
Why the double-vaccinated in some places are testing positive for COVID more often than the unvaccinated - "In at least three provinces lately, Canadians who are double-vaccinated have been more likely to test positive for COVID than the unvaccinated, a fact that has been seized on by anti-vaccination activists as supposed evidence the shots don’t work... “It’s curious,” admits Dr. Mark Loeb, an infectious-disease doctor and professor at McMaster University. “The first thing for me that comes to mind is, I don’t see any biological explanation for this. I don’t think that makes sense.” The “confusing” trend can be logically explained but “it behooves us not to hide from these data or to minimize them, but instead to wrestle with them,” says University of Ottawa epidemiologist Raywat Deonandan... past research on other diseases suggests it’s likely that people already vaccinated simply have a greater inclination to get tested if they fall ill... But there is probably another confounding factor, too, the experts say. Until provinces imposed new lockdowns after the onset of the Omicron variant, the vaccinated were putting themselves at greater risk of exposure to the virus, Jüni noted. That’s because their status allowed them to attend restaurants, gyms and theatres that required vaccine passports. “This was not a problem in the pre-Omicron era when Delta and the previous variants were reasonably well controlled with distancing, capacity limits and casual mask wearing,” wrote Deonandan. “But Omicron changed all that. The vaccinated are now almost as vulnerable as the unvaccinated in becoming infected with Omicron (though much less severely).”"
The last factor makes no sense. The vaccinated only started testing positive at greater rates long after covid apartheid started (unless the unspoken assumption is that the unvaccinated were mixing more than the vaccinated outside of covid apartheid, which would then be an indictment of covid apartheid)
Could certain COVID-19 vaccines leave people more vulnerable to the AIDS virus? - "Certain COVID-19 vaccine candidates could increase susceptibility to HIV, warns a group of researchers who in 2007 learned that an experimental HIV vaccine had raised in some people the risk for infection with the AIDS virus"
Good luck to the kids who are being forcibly vaccinated against covid, which they have essentially no vulnerability to
Public weariness sets in against Covid-19 curbs, despite anger and disappointment with New Year countdown crowds - "Although the world is only just entering the third year of tackling the Covid-19 pandemic, news media have been reporting about people in various countries being tired of the social restrictions caused by the health crisis. So it came as no real surprise to some people in Singapore — even though others were angry and disappointed — that a large group of revellers broke Covid-19 safety regulations to gather beyond the approved limits on the night of New Year’s Eve at Clarke Quay and threw their masks off with wild abandon. One psychologist told TODAY that it may even be a sign that people are getting frustrated with Covid-19 safety rules in Singapore. Mr Praveen Nair, a psychologist at Raven Counselling and Consultancy, said: “Singapore is already known for its multiplicity of rules and regulations… but most people are able to put that in the background as long as they can go about their daily lives. “But the problem with the Covid-19 regulations is that they disrupt daily life, so people have this sentiment that it’s all too much and they cannot take it anymore.”... For those who are tired of abiding by the rules all the time, they admit that they let their guard down when no one is around... Using parenting as an analogy, he said that a child will likely stop listening to their parents if they keep getting mixed messages from them on how to behave... “Sustaining a new behaviour also often requires reinforcement and reward, beyond just stopping old behaviour,” Mr Liew said. “As such, there may be fatigue setting in if the focus seems to be more on the ‘punishment’ of previous behaviours, rather than the benefits of the new ones.” Indeed, at least seven out of nine Singaporeans who spoke to TODAY said that they were tired of the prolonged duration of the Covid-19 regulations, particularly when they feel that not much has changed or the rules do not make sense to them. Such is the case for a 26-year-old postgraduate who wanted to be known only as Syed. “It's been two years and even after all the deaths, fears, vaccination regimes… nothing seems to have changed. The rules are, like, take one step forward, two steps back”... "Most (people in Singapore) are vaccinated and we have all been told that the vaccinated are more resistant to the virus... (moreover) the whole population has been restricted for so long"... Mr Sim, for one, said that when he is out and there is no one around him, he removes his mask “just so that I can feel the sun or breeze on my face”. In any case, the entrepreneur said that he was aware of others who have held “huge parties” in their homes. “But at this stage of the pandemic when most of us are vaccinated, hardly anyone is bothered.”... As for one 29-year-old marketing manager who wanted to be known only as Siti, she said that the rules help ensure the safety of her young family. She is expecting her second child. “Getting infected now isn’t really a big deal anymore especially for those who are vaccinated. It’s just the kids that we are more worried about.” Even then, she said that only “God knows” how much longer she can tolerate the rules."
Apparently even Singaporeans can't tolerate neverending curbs for a bad flu (which is even less serious than a flu if you're vaccinated). So much for vaccines being our way out of the pandemic. And so much for following the science, since Singapore pretends that the outdoors is as risky as the indoors, and that children are at big risk from covid
Being unable to feel the sun and breeze on your face used to be a description of a dystopia
Expats head for the exit as 'easy' Singapore's Covid-19 controls bite - ""It's been like this for so long. And it doesn't feel like anything's going to change here," said Ms Sandler. "Life is very, very easy here. (But) is it worth it to live such a convenient life without being able to see family, friends, without being able to travel?"... Some compare its strict Covid rules with more freedom back home or bemoan the inability to travel freely to visit family, while others joined the "great resignation" wave seen around the world. For Ms Sandler, it was "devastating" that giving birth to her daughter in the middle of the outbreak meant her family did not meet her second child for a year. Singapore has continued to attract new investment and foreign talent during the pandemic, but a drop in foreigners sent its population down by the most since 1950 — 4.1 per cent lower year-on-year as of June 2021. That is mostly due to fewer numbers of lower-wage workers, typically employed in construction and marine services. But even the number of employment pass holders, or professionals earning at least S$4,500 monthly, fell nearly 14 per cent from 193,700 in December 2019 to 166,900 in June 2021... for Filipina Nessa Santos, who worked in the city-state for a decade, and her British husband, the pandemic was the push they needed to move from Singapore, a tiny urban island with no hinterland, to the English countryside with their children. "Even though our jobs were good, it was also very stressful and very demanding," said Ms Santos. "We didn't want that kind of lifestyle anymore." And Mr Chris Anderson, who moved to Singapore in 2019 from Hong Kong, has returned home to the United States to join a tech start-up. He was perturbed by rules last year that restricted foreigners from returning. "You leave the country, you're not a priority to get back in... that's always at the back of your mind""
India’s poor hygiene standard turned beneficial to fight Covid-19: Study - "India’s poor health and hygiene standards may be having a beneficial impact for lakhs of people as their immune system got naturally “trained” to fight the virus."
