The Day McDonald's Closed

You know things must be bad when even McDonald's closed.

I thought it was bad when the cinemas closed. And movies' opening got postponed. Or even cancelled.

I had realised a long time ago, that cinemas NEVER closed. No matter what holidays it may be, you could always go to the movies. They are open on Chinese New Year, Christmas, National Day, whatever. They don't close.

EVER!

Until now.

Save money. Spend time.

This situation has affected people severely. Loss of jobs, loss of income, less disposable income.

To help Singaporeans, the Govt has ordered bars, cinemas, nightclubs and karaokes to close. So people with less income won't be tempted to spend their scarce income frivolously. But these measures were not enough! People were still finding ways to spend money they don't have! 

So the govt is closed other "leisure" centres from 7 April - IKEA, Decathlon, Japan Home, Daiso...

Sigh.

And for those who have lost their jobs, who might feel lonely at home by themselves, the govt suggested companies allow people to work from home. So they can keep their laid off family members company and reduce loneliness and depression. 

But for some couples, after years of... "Togetherness" they can't relate to each other without their children. So the govt ordered home based learning so the family could spend time together during this trying times.

Save money. Spend time. With your family.

Singapore. April 7 to May 4 2020

Ignorance... and stupidity, kills

Trump in an abundance of stupidity and ignorance, tweeted that a combination therapy of hydroxychloroquine, a less toxic derivative of chloroquine, and the antibiotic azithromycin — which was administered to six patients who recovered from Covid-19 this month in France — has “a real chance to be one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine.” 

Dr Anthony Fauci warned, “what we don’t know, is when you put it [chloroquine, which is used to treat malaria, arthritis, and lupus] in the context of another disease, whether it’s safe.”

But people heard Trump.

And someone believed him enough to try to self-medicate.

Update and Comment on Covid19

The stats as at 24 Mar 2020 0121 GMT, Italy is second with almost 64,000 cases, and US is firmly in 3rd with almost 44,000 cases (update: 46,000+ at 0446 GMT) after over 10,000 new cases were identified.

China of course still has the most cases (over 81,000), though their death toll has plateaued at 3,200.

Italy had long surpassed China's death with over 6000 deaths as of this writing.

US deaths are still relatively low at over 500.

Germany has over 29,000 cases but they have managed to keep their deaths to just over 120.

Fear leads to stupidity...

There are as of this writing (23 Mar 2020, early hours), almost 24,000 confirmed Covid19 cases in Germany. The numbers reported for the US is more than 30,000. But the deaths reported in Germany is 93. So how many deaths are there in the US?

100?

120?

388.

Conspiracy Theory on the Coronavirus

The coronavirus that causes Covid19 is quite selective. It is quite mild in children and young people, and most of those who died from it or complications from it, are older people.

The virus originated in China.

China's one-child policy has resulted in an ageing population. And this top-heavy population pyramid will mean that each working adult will have to support many elderly.

China's "social support" system will not be able to support an ageing China.

If only there were some way to... reduce the burden from an ageing population...