2021 could be worse

At the end of 2020, when the first vaccines were given in Singapore, hopes were high, and I started a draft blog with the above title. It was meant as a caution; don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched, that sort of thing.

The year started well enough and as I mentioned in other posts, things were looking up and traffic jams were back.

Well last week everything started to change. A nurse in one of our major hospitals was diagnosed with Covid. She had aleady been vaccinated in Jan and Feb but she developed a fever and a sore throat.

To date we have found several positive patients in her ward and one 88 year-old lady has passed away. Testing the entire hospital staff and patients have detected 40 others. Most worryingly, one is a porter and one is a physiotherapist. These are staff who go just about everywhere in the hospital.

There were other clusters in the community too, all detected in the same week! Most worrying in term’s of potential for spread are an airport immigration officer, a 15 year-old schoolgirl, a hairdresser and a spa worker. So far these clusters have less than 10 people each.

Last night, after several days of watching the numbers rise, the government announced a rollback of measures and increased social distancing rules. So we’re back to work from home if possible and smaller and fewer gatherings.

We’ve also been warned that if necessary a lockdown could be imposed. With over 20% of the population vaccinated, we should not have as many deaths and large clusters. Unfortunately the vaccine could have caused complacency, and there are still large numbers of vulnerable who have not been vaccinated.

So yes 2021 could be worse, but I hope not.