In the last week, Singapore’s Covid-19 postive cases have exploded, especially among the foreign workers who live in worker dormitories.In the last week alone, we have had nearly 4,000 positive cases, almost all of whom are the foreign workers. This is really bad, but was something we should have expected, given the conditions they live in. They live in dorm rooms, sometimes upto 20 people in a single space with not much space to really do social distancing. Many of the dorms have been designated as isolation centres and the government is actively testing here.

We are now in day 12 of the circuit breaker and this was when we were expected to see a significant drop in positive cases, but because of the surge in cases from foreign workers, it is actually quite disconcerting and worrying. I feel maybe the government may not life the circuit breaker on May 04 and we may have another few weeks of the same. This circuit breaker is expected to cost the Singapore economy S$10 billion according to one estimate. But the human life is more than this, right? So life goes on. Because of my diabetes, I rarely venture out, with S and the children running errands which need to be done. We also put on a face mask every time we get out of the house and not doing this has now become punishable offence.

The children start school from tomorrow after almost five months of holiday! They will be doing e-learning at least in the first instance till May 04 or until the government gives the green signal for educational instutions to reopen. It’s going to be a bit hard for them as they don’t know their classmates and teachers and will only see them later in the term or even only next semester if it comes to that!

I have restarted meditation and found an app which was giving out a year’s worth of free meditation lessons, which I signed up for. This is really helping me in the short term and I hope to make meditation a part of my daily routine by the time my free trial ends next April. I am also reading more than usual and make it a point to have a hard stop every day so I can read. Another thing which I started doing is signing up for webinars and online classes and again this is something I want to do even after the situation becomes better.

Later today, my school classmates are going to have a video call. We have not seen each other for ages as we are spread all over the world and holidays don’t always match. So we are doing this call across continents and countries and hopefully this will be something we do more frequently moving forward!

Stay home, stay safe and lets ride this all together!

The numbers are brining to get scary now. Singapore has more than 2200 positive cases with nine deaths so far. All of the deaths in Singapore have been the elderly. Worldwide the numbers of positive cases and deaths are worse.

After implementing a sort of lockdown which is called a ‘Circuit Breaker’ here, we will now start week 2 of this from tomorrow. But you still have people who just can’t seem to stay put at home. I feel so frustrated when we see and hear cases of people who are bored at home and so want to go to malls and parks with their whole family. Why can’t they just listen to what the experts say and stay home so everyone – them and us can remain safe?

Now they’re going to start fining people if they break the circuit breaker regulations here which is a very good thing and which I feel should have been implemented earlier.

On to better news. Last night, us cousins did a video call which was across three continents and four countries and this was so fun that we are already planning the next one. And this morning I woke up to a slew of messages from my friends in school talking about the same thing. That will be more challenging because we are spread across some 10-15 countries across four continents. But we are determined to do this and hopefully this will work out soon.

Stay home and stay safe folks! We will beat this and soon!

We’re now in the month of April and are still at home. On Friday, the Singapore government announced that it was implementing full home based learning for all schools, colleges and institutes of higher learning for about a month and then they will take it from there. BB & GG as well as the other incoming poly freshmen will have to go to school once between now and April 20 when school starts to meet some classmates as well as their mentor and then get set up for e-learning until the time schools open for everyone. I also heard from someone else that all graduation ceremonies have been cancelled and students are understandably very upset about this. But this is something that nobody expected, so we just have to take things in our stride. Pre schools and childcare centres will also be completely closed down during this period.

Workplaces have also been told to close for the next month unless you belong to an essential service. For those parents who can’t afford to work from home or work in a service which can’t be closed down, schools and pre-school centres plus childcare centres will be open for their children who will be supervised there.

Singapore’s Covid-19 postive cases has hit more than 1000 now and unfortunately, 6 people, all elderly, have died from the virus so far.

I have also been quite worried about my parents who are alone in India. Because of the lockdown they are unable to get out of the house, especially since they are amongst the most vulnerable group. Luckily there are some NGOs who are helping the elderly who live alone as well as an ex-helper of my mum who will send her husband with the necessities they need when my mum calls her.

With so much negativity in this world today, it is getting increasingly hard to stay positive. It is hard, but think of happier times, watch funny videos, support your neighbours, especially the vulnerable and take advantage of the extra time you now have to do something you have always wanted to do, but never found the time to do.

Take care folks and stay healthy. Don’t leave your homes unless absolutely necessary and stay safe!

Another week and news about Covid-19 seems not to abate. We are not hearing any good news from anywhere and I am frankly tired of battling the fake news that seem to poliferate most Whatsapp group chats!

On Sunday evening, India announced a 21-day lockdown and this was really disturbing to me. I was so worried about my elderly parents, that I didn’t sleep for about three days. They had groceries and vegetables for about two or three days, but didn’t know what they would do after that. I started reaching out to friends living in Mumbai and my school group really came up for me. They sent me links to resources that can help my parents and one of my friends also said she would help them buy groceries if necessary. That was such a huge relief, that I was able to have a good night’s sleep that night!

The US has now overtaken China as the country with the largest number of cases and as of yesterday, we have had quite a few celebrities, high profile people and heads of state testing positive to Covid-19. A cousin commented that this virus seems to be very egalitarian as it does not discriminate against anyone! But jokes aside, the damage to the world’s economy may take years or even decades to mitigate. Most airlines have grounded their fleet and Singapore Airlines, Singapore’s flag carrier has grounded about 96% of it’s fleet and this image shared in Singapore was so sad! It is said that most of the airlines will go brankrupt by May if things continue in the same vein.

As of yesterday, according to the WHO, there are more than 500,000 confirmed cases worldwide across more than 200 countries with more than 23,000 people succumbing to this disease. Here’s the link to the WHO Dashboard if you want to see the latest figures. Most countries also have their own national dashboards, so google for your own dashboard if you already don’t know of it. There’s another dashboard by Bloomberg whose figures are higher than that of the WHO, so perhaps this is updated frequently. According to the Bloomberg Dashboard, we have had almost 600,000 confirmed cases with close to 28,000 deaths. Please note the figures that I am quoting from the various dashboards may have changed when you read this post, so please do your due diligence before quoting me!

Most of us are now working from home and children kept from school. Stay safe and healthy as we all overcome this pandemic, the first major outbreak in our lives. Stay safe, stay healthy and don’t venture outside unless you need to.

I am going to leave you with this super adorable video released by the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago who allowed their penguins to walk around the closed aquarium to meet other inhabitants!

Another week and with Europe now the epicentre of the Coronavirus Covid-19, deaths in Italy have overtaken those in China which is scary! Many countries have closed borders and so people are cloistered inside cities with the dying. I have heard because there is so much stress on the healthcare system in Italy, healthcare workers have to now choose whom to treat and whom to leave to die, which is quite frankly very scary to hear and see.

Mid morning yesterday, we received news that Singapore recorded it’s first fatalities to Covid-19. The two fatalities were people above the age of 60 and had been in Intensive Care for a while now. The news has saddened quite a few of us, but I guess this was something inevitable, given how it has been worldwide!

One of the busiest road crossing or maybe the most busy road border crossing between Singapore and the southern Malaysian state of Johor was deserted after a surprise announcement by the Malaysian Prime Minister to close all borders. Residents of Malaysia and Singapore were given roughly 26 hours to get out or come in before borders closed and this led to a mad scramble, especially for the 350,000 odd people who cross the causeway daily, to make arrangements to either work from home, take paid or unpaid leave or make arrangements to stay in Singapore. Luckily employers and the Singapore government came through and made arrangements for most of the workers to be housed in hotels and dormetories here. Here’s a picture of how the causeway looked on the first day of the border closure as opposed to what it usually looks like at the same time of the day.

On to some good news from the virus. Because most people are at home and there are hardly to no vehicles on the roads, pollution levels across the world has dropped. Satellite observations have shown that the temporary measures have also driven significant decreases in harmful emissions which is good for the earth. In Venice, the often murky canals recently began to get clearer, with fish visible in the water below. Some people even reported seeing dolphins and birds which previously feared the canals. So there’s some good news

So there you go, some silver lining in these dire and uncertian times. Stay safe people, practice social distancing, wash and santise your hands and other surfaces regularly and most importantly – Stay Healthy!