We’re now at the halfway mark in the year and like how 2020 was, 2021 seems to be flying past as well.

I have been reading, but not as much. These days, I seem to watch Netflix and YouTube more than I read, so from this month I have decided to take a book, set the timer for an hour and just read. Hopefully this will spur me to read more and not less as I am currently doing. I seriously feel social media, games on my phone and Netflix are a serious detriment to my reading. Is that the same with you too?

This week’s positivity quote is a simple one and exhorts us to always remain positive and keep thinking positive thoughts, because positive thinking is a key part of effective stress management. When you remain positive, it has many health benefits like an increased life span, lower rates of depression and distress, a greater resistance to the common cold, better psychological and physical well-being, including cardiovascular health and reduced risk of death from cardiovascular disease as well as better coping skills during hardships and times of stress

I’ve covered a distance of more than 1,400 km as of end June now which takes me about 150 km inside the province of Chumphon in Thailand. I am still about 500 km south of Thailand’s capital of Bangkok, but my route will bypass one of my favourite cities and will instead take a left towards Myanmar at Ratchburi. I am still more than 5,000 km away from my home in Mumbai and I think this trek will take me at least a good part of 2022 to reach. I hope by the end of 2021, I at least reach the state of Manipur in northeast India, which borders Myanmar and then 2022 will be all about traversing the huge subcontinent that is India. My personal goal for 2021 was 2021 km, of which I have covered almost 70%.

Sometime this week, India recorded it’s 400,000^th COVID related death, though the US still leads in total deaths, with Brazil following close by and India in the third place. In terms of daily new cases being reported, Brazil seems to lead the pack with India in second place and Colombia next, followed by the UK and Indonesia. In terms of total doses of vaccinations given, China leads with nearly 16% of the population fully vaccinated, followed by India with about 4.5% of the population fully vaccinated and the US in third place with nearly half its population fully vaccinated. In terms of populations fully vaccinated, 11.1% of the world’s population is fully vaccinated and Seychelles has almost 70% of its population fully vaccinated with the Cayman Islands in second place with 69% of the population fully vaccinated and Malta in third place with two thirds of its population fully vaccinated. Singapore is at number 32 for the percentage of population fully vaccinated with about 37% fully vaccinated and expected to have about two thirds of the population fully vaccinated by its National Day on 09 August.

In Singapore, when BB & GG got their first dose, the duration between the first and second doses was moved up from three weeks (which was what we had) to six weeks. But last week, we learnt that the second dose could be brought forward and now they will get their second dose later next week.

This was all from us this week. Stay safe and get vaccinated if you have not yet, please do as soon as you can. See you next week!

Another week ends and we are looking at the second half of 2021 very soon. This was a very quiet week for us and nothing really happened.

Singapore has vaccinated nearly 6 million residents now with about 3 million residents fully vaccinated and will increase to daily vaccination rate to 80 thousand doses daily, up from 47 thousand. This respresents about 36% of the population with a plan for two thirds of the population to be fully vaccinated by Singapore’s National Day. And there are also plans to ease our restrictions once that magical number is hit, hopefully sometime in mid-July.

India has given out 300 million doses with 52 million people fully vaccinated, accounting for 3.9% of its population. Worldover, nearly 3 billion people have been given at least one dose of vaccine and about 805 million fully vaccinated accounting for 10.4% of the world’s population. We still have far to go to achieve a world herd immunity of what experts say 75-80% of the world’s population being fully vaccinated so life can go back to a semblance of some normal. But as all things are wont to so, we know that things will get better, we have hope on our side.

And this segues very nicely into our quote for the week which is about hope and belief. When we believe, we are already hallway to achieving what we believe in according to Theodore Roosevelt, the 26^th President of the United States.

Please get vaccinated if you are eligible and convince those around you, in your family, your friends and your community about the benefits of vaccination if they are still on the fence. The faster everyone in the world gets vaccinated, the sooner we can get back to a normal life, the sooner we can start travelling. This is especially true for people like me who have parents and family living in another country and can’t see them unless travel gets normalised. Stay safe everyone!

There is a tremendous amount of determination and resilience in the human spirit and when we fail, we discover new meanings to our lives, forcing us to reach deep to find solutions to the problems that have plagued us. This is exactly what this quote attributed to Winston Churchill tells us. Whenever we feel rejected and are bogged down by failure, we must remember that this is not the end, what matters is that we must brush it off, get up and fight more.

This brings us to the worldwide fight against COVID-19 with the help of vaccinations. Singapore has about 47% of the eligible people vaccinated with at least one dose of the vaccine and the aim is to have at least 80% of the population vaccinated with at least the first dose by mid-August. Worldwide, about 21% of the population has been vaccinated with at least one dose and Asia is also pretty much at the same number. India’s 15.5% of the population has been vaccinated with at least one dose and has vaccinated about 15.5% of its population. I understand that the target to fully vaccinate the population is 31 December 2021, but at current levels of vaccinations, it would mean that the vaccine rates will need to four times more than the current rates to reach the target of 31 December.

This week, I was completely unproductive and I think it was a counterpoint to last week’s super productive week, so here’s hoping this coming week will be a good one for me. GG & BB also had a quiet week, though BB had to go back to school one day to make up for those lab lessons which had to be cancelled because of the restrictions last month.

That’s all from us this week, stay safe, stay masked and get vaccinated people!

GG & BB had their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine this week. Though both Pfizer and Moderna are available in Singapore, both got the Pfizer vaccine because they are below 18 years old and Moderna is available only to those 18 and above. Other than a slight pain in the arm where he was vaccinated for about a day, BB had no side effects. GG on the other hand, had pain for a couple of days and also her arm seemed to be slightly swollen.

Singapore has started easing out restrictions and now up to five people can visit and go out together from the two during the heightened alert period. From 20-30 cases a day, we have come back to single digit cases. Even India has started seeing a drop in the daily case count, but a couple of days back recorded a daily high of deaths attributed to Covid.

This week’s quote comes from the motivational speaker, Tony Robbins who said that life is a gift and this gift is a privilege and an opportunity and it is our responsibility to give back to this gift by becoming more than what we are today. That we should strive to become better versions of ourselves everyday is my take away from this quote.

For me, I had a super productive week, both in terms of my writing as well as my steps. I made some changes to my daily routine which I will share once they become more regular and maybe that will help someone else. But that’s material for another blog post.

That is all from my side this week. As always, stay safe, stay masked and get vaccinated as soon as you can.

Another month is over and we are halfway through the year and things are the still the same.

Singapore’s tightened controls seems to be working and cases have fallen a bit, but we are still not out of the woods. The government is ring-fencing areas of concern and even testing all residents of particular housing buildings where multiple cases have been detected, with one estate having to undergo a second round of testing within a week.

Early last week, they also announced priority vaccinations for students between the ages of 12-18, followed by the remaining adults who have not yet been vaccinated. Among students, priority was given to students from the graduating cohorts of O, N and A levels and the other students will get the link in a couple of days. The day after this was announced, we got emails from both BB & GG’s schools and the next day, the link from the health ministry to book their vaccine slots. BB will be taking his first jab later today while GG will take hers later in the week because she has some exams coming up and she wanted to finish those before the jab.

As an update of my steps, I have walked till the outskirts of Surat Thani, in the same province about 354 km inside of Thailand’s borders. I am still a long way from the capital of Bangkok, but my route will not take me to one of my favourite cities, but instead will veer left towards Myanmar at some point later.

My reading has been on a zig-zag curve this month. When I was super into a book, I was obsessively reading it, snatching small moments of time during the day to read, but conversely, when the book did not grip me, I took ages to finish it. Having said that, I am still ahead of my goal for the year and I suspect I will surpass it and more.

Today’s quote is attributed to Earle Nightingale, an American radio speaker and author. According to Nightingale, our thoughts determine our lives, we are the sum total of our thoughts and we are where we are in life because that’s where we really want to be. The idea being that we can change our lives at any time, but the intention must be there, otherwise nothing will happen. This is really food for thought, and something we need to think about and think positive thoughts, ones that we will spur us to success, irrespective of what success means to us.

With that note, I’ll sign off for this week. Stay safe and if where you stay has the vaccination ready, please sign up so not only are you protected, but you also protect the vulnerable in your family and community, especially those who are not yet and can’t be vaccinated.