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.

May is on its way out and we still seem to be in this seemingly never-ending maze where we are just running around in circles. It’s been almost 18 months now since the pandemic hit us and we are all going stir-crazy!

Singapore had introduced a tightening of measures a couple of weeks back due to an increase in cases, and this week announced, contrary to expectations they will not impose a lockdown. But the number of cases has still not gone down to a couple of months back, so we’re still not out of the woods yet. We’ve now learnt that Malaysia has imposed a total lockdown for fourteen days from Tuesday because of the sudden surge in cases. And this has ruled out any trips across the causeway for the near future, which is quite disheartening as this is a favourite jaunt for people in Singapore. We do day trips and also short holidays to cities and resorts across the Johor Straits.

Today’s quote comes from Roy Bennett who says that we should not be limited by the fears in our mind, we should be instead guided by the dreams in our heart. This is so true because when we are limited by our fears, we don’t like to take any risks, thinking it will never work out. Anytime this happens, we need to recognise this emotion and let that go. Instead, be guided by what we want to achieve in life and use that as the beacon for what we want to do in life. This is a quote that all of us should internalise and use it as a life principle.

On the children’s front, they are busy with school, though BB’s school has deferred their mid semester exams to the end of June, when hopefully they can go back to school for in-person learning. Practicals and lab work has been moved online and will probably resume in the second half of the semester, though I always ask him how they do practicals and lab online! GG on the other hand is super busy with project submissions and exams all due in a couple of weeks.

My eye infection flared up in the beginning of May and since I had a scheduled check-up, I didn’t call ahead for a new appointment. I’ve been started on a new medicine regime and the infection seems to have subsided quite a bit in just a few days. I have another follow-up in a month’s time, so here’s hoping for the best.

That’s all from me this week. Stay safe, stay masked and above all, get vaccinated if you are eligible to.