Things to take note when you go for your Covid Vaccination

[therock]

11 hours ago, Playtime said:

Did you get... rock hard. 🤣🤣

You know those girls who are sweet and know they are sweet, and that you know they are... amp it up by 5 ... enuf said..

I didn't even notice the jab being given. heh... I wanted to wander around the room a bit, then turn back and ask for another vaccination.. 

 

[Tianmo]

Just had 2nd shot,  the young ORDed medic surprising good, as good as the lady who gave me the first shot. 

And yah, 250ml bottle of water only...

 

 

 

Edited April 28, 2021 by Tianmo

[therock]

https://www.health.com/condition/infectious-diseases/coronavirus/covid-arm-rash-moderna

Quote

The newly identified side effect has been dubbed "COVID arm," but medical experts have given it a slightly more professional label: delayed cutaneous hypersensitivity, which essentially means a delayed reaction on the skin.

"It seems to be an allergic reaction—a skin reaction that occurs after getting an injection," board-certified dermatologist Debra Jaliman, MD, who has a private practice in Manhattan, New York City, tells Health. "We see firmness and redness at the site where the injection occurred." Some people who've experienced "COVID arm" also report itching, and say the lesion is painful to touch.

Quote

The good news: "COVID arm" is a brief, harmless response. Experts are still trying to figure out exactly what's going on, but it's likely that it's simply part of the body's immune system response to the vaccine. "We want to reassure people that this is a known phenomenon," Esther Freeman, MD, director of global health dermatology at Massachusetts General Hospital told USA Today. "Having a big red splotch on your arm for a couple of days may not be fun but the reality is there's no need to panic and no reason not to get your second shot." According to Dr. Jaliman "[the rash] should go away within 24 hours to a week."

 

[therock]

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/covid-19-indian-variant-biontech-co-founder-confident-vaccine-14710480

 

Pfizer FTW..

 

Quote

BERLIN: BioNTech co-founder Ugur Sahin on Wednesday (Apr 28) voiced confidence that the vaccine that his company jointly developed with Pfizer works against the Indian variant of the coronavirus.

"We are still testing the Indian variant, but the Indian variant has mutations that we have already tested for and which our vaccine works against, so I am confident," said Sahin.

"The vaccine is cleverly built and I'm convinced the bulwark will hold. And if we have to strengthen the bulwark again, then we will do it, that I'm not worried about," he added.

 

[Adrianli]

My classmate who was a registered nurse told me that there is a demand for part time nurses at these vaccination centres. The rate is $25/hr and up to $35/hr. They can clock 12hrs shift a day from opening to closing, 8am to 8pm. She is considering to go for it since we are on holidays. Her friend is already doing it.

[Playtime]

33 minutes ago, Adrianli said:

My classmate who was a registered nurse told me that there is a demand for part time nurses at these vaccination centres. The rate is $25/hr and up to $35/hr. They can clock 12hrs shift a day from opening to closing, 8am to 8pm. She is considering to go for it since we are on holidays. Her friend is already doing it.

Even at $25/hr that's $200 for a 8hr day. 

Good pay seah.

All the air stewardess sure cheong. 

[therock]

[therock]

Pray for all the HCW in TTSH .. 

 

[therock]

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/working-at-keeping-economy-open-amid-covid-19-fight

Quote

Singapore has reintroduced some safety measures as a new wave of Covid-19 infections spreads through the community, fuelled by new and more contagious variants of the coronavirus, such as the B16172 "double mutant" strain first detected in India.

With 10 active clusters in the community and 43 people infected in the past week, the country is witnessing its worst outbreak in close to a year.

Critics say stricter border controls have come too late, arguing that restrictions, such as limiting group gatherings to five people, would not have been needed if imported cases had not brought in the new coronavirus variants.

Was this the case?

After Singapore relaxed its public health measures at the end of last year, and went into phase three of its reopening, crowded malls, busy offices and packed restaurants were a normal sight again.

People were even going to cinemas, attending concerts and planning holidays, with the Hong Kong-Singapore air travel bubble slated to start on May 26.

With locally transmitted Covid-19 cases close to zero, a vaccination programme under way, and people going about their daily lives with little worry, Singapore was declared the best place to be during the pandemic by Bloomberg's Covid Resilience Ranking on April 27.

Even as the accolades came, Covid-19 cases in the community were popping up, growing from two on April 22 to five on April 24 and then falling again.

But these did not seem to register much alarm.

Then on April 28, a nurse at Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH) was diagnosed as positive for the coronavirus. Patients and other hospital staff were swabbed, and soon more cases were discovered. Singapore was seeing its first hospital Covid-19 cluster.

On Tuesday, when the multi-ministry task force on Covid-19 held a press conference to announce new measures to curb the spread of the virus, the cluster had grown to 40 cases, one of whom has died.

Short-term visitors from India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka had already been banned earlier, but now the quarantine period for travellers was increased to 21 days, and social gatherings were limited to groups of five, down from eight, among other measures.

Border issue

As early as last month, there had been rumblings on the ground about whether Singapore should stop flights from India.

At the time, Covid-19 cases were growing at an alarming rate in India, with record highs daily.

A new B16172 "double mutant" variant of the coronavirus had been fingered as the culprit behind the outbreak, which would develop into India's catastrophic second wave of the pandemic.

First detected in India, the new strain, which contains multiple mutations, two of which are thought to help the virus spread faster and evade vaccines, was found to have caused over 60 per cent of all Covid-19 infections in the state of Maharashtra, which had the largest number of cases in the country.

Not enough was known about the variant of interest, but the situation unsettled the health authorities around the world.

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Soon, countries around the world started to detect the new strain among cases, and by late last month it had spread across the globe to 17 countries, said the World Health Organisation (WHO).

By April 20, Singapore too had discovered 46 cases of Covid-19 with this "double mutant" strain - all imported - and border measures were tightened as the country moved into a state of heightened alert.

From April 23, 11.59pm, long-term pass holders and short-term visitors who were in India recently were barred from entering or transiting through Singapore.

From May 1, 11.59pm, this was extended to those who were recently in Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

The departure hall at Changi Airport Terminal 1. From 11.59pm on Friday, the period of quarantine for almost all travellers coming into Singapore, except those from countries with special travel arrangements, has been extended to 21 days. ST PHOTO: KUA CHEE SIONG

Some have asked if the border controls should have come earlier, noting that Hong Kong suspended flights from India and Pakistan from April 20 for two weeks after multiple imported cases carried the strain into the city.

Out of the cases in the TTSH cluster reported, five have been found to have the B16172 variant.

Other variants responsible for big outbreaks around the world have also shown up in locally transmitted cases here, including the B117 which originated in Britain, the B1351 from South Africa and the P1 from Brazil.

As at Monday, Singapore had 29 community cases of the various variants.

Professor Teo Yik Ying, dean of the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health at the National University of Singapore, acknowledged that shutting the borders to some travellers would have kept the strains out, but said that this would have been only temporary.

"Would we have avoided what we are seeing now if we had shut the borders early? To some extent yes, but it would just be delaying the inevitable," he said.

Given how connected the world is, the variants would still eventually make their way into the country, he added.

He cited the United States, which banned flights from China in the early days of the pandemic last year, only to discover later that the coronavirus variants driving the outbreaks in the country had come from Europe, in particular Britain.

"Complete border closures work in so far as allowing countries some breathing space to enact strong public health measures so that they can detect and isolate problematic variants when they come in. But it is not a permanent solution or a solution on its own," he said.

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Professor Paul Tambyah, president of the Asia-Pacific Society of Clinical Microbiology, noted that the WHO does not recommend travel restrictions, but added that "nobody anywhere in the world follows their advice".

He suggested, though, that Singapore could have stopped regular flights from countries in South Asia experiencing new waves of infection, but arrange for a series of evacuation flights to bring home citizens, residents and those with close connections to Singapore safely, similar to what was done in the early days of the pandemic last year when flights from Wuhan, China, were stopped.

"Australia is doing that right now for its citizens in India and perhaps that is something we could think about," he said.

Social media posts about Indian nationals flying to other countries and staying for 14 days before flying to Singapore, to work around the travel ban on those who were in India recently, also sparked concern among people.

Some saw it as a loophole.

Answering questions about the issue on April 26, Transport Minister Ong Ye Kung said Singapore was targeting travellers from high-risk countries, and travellers who stayed long enough in a country with lower risk would assume the risk profile of that place.

"If your policy is to target risk, then for someone from a high-risk country to move to a lower-risk country, stay there for some time, and after that remain non-Covid positive... and then come to Singapore, actually, you have lowered the risk tremendously in that process," he said.

Magic number

Singapore has previously used travel history in the past 14 days in applying border measures. From 11.59pm on Friday (May 7), this was extended to 21 days.

The period of quarantine for almost all travellers, except those from countries with special travel arrangements, has been extended in tandem.

Based on an incubation, and consequently quarantine, period of 14 days, there is a chance of around 1 per cent for the virus leaking into the community, said Prof Teo.

But he noted that there has been a growing number of cases where the incubation period of the disease had stretched beyond 14 days.

So some people who had come in and were properly quarantined for 14 days in designated facilities and tested negative for Covid-19 had later developed symptoms and tested positive.

"From a border perspective, increasing (the quarantine period) to 21 days is a lot more prudent," said Prof Teo.

But he warned that it was not without consequences, noting that being cooped up in a room in a quarantine facility for 21 days can affect people's mental health.

Families who need to hire foreign domestic workers will also have to pay more when bringing in these workers, as they will have to be quarantined for a longer period.

Unlike foreign workers in the construction, marine and process industries, who have been subject to a longer quarantine period of 21 days since February, domestic workers were required to be quarantined for only 14 days.

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Economy and health

In announcing the new measures earlier this week, Education Minister Lawrence Wong, who co-chairs the multi-ministry task force, had said that unlike larger, resource-rich countries, Singapore cannot close its borders for a prolonged duration.

"Because we are small, we do not have sufficient resources, we need migrant workers to build our homes, we need migrant workers across a wide range of essential services for our own needs, we need migrant workers to care for our elderly. And so, it's really very hard for us to close our borders permanently," he said.

He added: "We have already been very tight (in our measures) to the point that the backlog of applications from companies and from potential employers here in Singapore has been growing significantly, considerably, and to the point where many projects have been suffering from delays.

"And more recently, when we restricted the flow of workers from India and from the entire South Indian continent, including Bangladesh, it means considerable delays would be added to all our projects. Some of our housing projects, BTO (Build-To-Order) projects may now well be delayed up to a year or more. So it does come at considerable cost to Singaporeans."

Shoppers checking in with the TraceTogether app at Paragon mall. With 10 active clusters in the community, Singapore is witnessing its worst outbreak in close to a year. ST PHOTO: KUA CHEE SIONG

This explanation has found little favour among some netizens, who have taken to social media to register their unhappiness, with comments like "thanks for putting economics over human lives".

Prof Tambyah said: "The reality is that the current state of the Singapore economy is such that we are dependent on tourists and even more so on foreign workers."

Singapore Manufacturing Federation president Douglas Foo said that ultimately, Singapore's success is built on a history of local and foreign businesses and workers coming together as one.

"What is important is that a big-picture approach be taken for the good of our people and our country, a big picture that considers not only the current situation but also a world post-pandemic and Singapore's position and economic survivability then."

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The manpower crunch for companies that rely heavily on foreign workers can also have spillover effects, since foreign workers hold most of the cleaning jobs here.

Cramoil Singapore, a licensed toxic industrial waste collector and treatment company, has seen its workforce dwindle to about 36 people, from its ideal strength of 50.

Ironically, this is happening at the busiest time for the company, which is among a handful that collect Covid-19 waste for proper disposal from quarantine centres, checkpoints, vaccination centres and disinfection companies.

As the amount of swabs, protective gowns and needles used goes up in tandem with a rise in Covid-19 cases, the company's workers have had to put in longer hours, said the company's operations director Marcus Tan.

He added that his company has tried and failed to fill the positions with Singaporeans, who are wary of the risks that come with the job.

And of two foreign workers the company hired in December to replace some of those who left, only one has arrived in Singapore.

"The second one is out of the equation right now," Mr Tan said. "We are very stretched, all the workers we have are working extra hours, it has been tough on them."

Foreign workers in the construction, marine and process industries have been subject to a longer quarantine period of 21 days since February. ST PHOTO: NG SOR LUAN

Prof Teo said a fine balance needs to be struck between keeping the economy open and protecting people's health. However, keeping the economy chugging along is not just about dollars and cents, he added.

"When economic activities are forced to a standstill, people who suffer the most are those in the lower-income groups who do not have stable jobs, and those who rely on daily and weekly wages.

"There are also people thrown into financial hardship to the point that there is hunger, people who cannot afford or access medication because of lockdowns. So it's not just about the economy."

""Would we have avoided what we are seeing now if we had shut the borders early? To some extent yes, but it would just be delaying the inevitable," he said.

Given how connected the world is, the variants would still eventually make their way into the country, he added."

"Complete border closures work in so far as allowing countries some breathing space to enact strong public health measures so that they can detect and isolate problematic variants when they come in. But it is not a permanent solution or a solution on its own," he said.

"Based on an incubation, and consequently quarantine, period of 14 days, there is a chance of around 1 per cent for the virus leaking into the community, said Prof Teo.

But he noted that there has been a growing number of cases where the incubation period of the disease had stretched beyond 14 days.

So some people who had come in and were properly quarantined for 14 days in designated facilities and tested negative for Covid-19 had later developed symptoms and tested positive.

"From a border perspective, increasing (the quarantine period) to 21 days is a lot more prudent," said Prof Teo.

But he warned that it was not without consequences, noting that being cooped up in a room in a quarantine facility for 21 days can affect people's mental health."

"Because we are small, we do not have sufficient resources, we need migrant workers to build our homes, we need migrant workers across a wide range of essential services for our own needs, we need migrant workers to care for our elderly. And so, it's really very hard for us to close our borders permanently," he said.

This explanation has found little favour among some netizens, who have taken to social media to register their unhappiness, with comments like "thanks for putting economics over human lives".

Prof Tambyah said: "The reality is that the current state of the Singapore economy is such that we are dependent on tourists and even more so on foreign workers."

Singapore Manufacturing Federation president Douglas Foo said that ultimately, Singapore's success is built on a history of local and foreign businesses and workers coming together as one.

"What is important is that a big-picture approach be taken for the good of our people and our country, a big picture that considers not only the current situation but also a world post-pandemic and Singapore's position and economic survivability then."

 

[therock]

All HCWs will soon undergo RRT - rostered routine testing..

Swab teams begin work at 5am, and those who are quarantined experience a lot of loneliness which cannot be just fixed with wifi.

Many people have no jobs, or reduced pay and are barely above water. 

Whilst medically, closing borders sounds totally correct, that's very hard unless you are New Zealand, or some rich Scandi country..

There are many people who are suffering and they won't be in such a forum because they won't own cars, or even have nice homes, not even HDB in some cases. MSW and case managers are working overtime, and the frontline staff sometimes sit in a corner quietly staring into blank space, totally exhausted and now HCWs are the target of ostracising..  

Take it easy, be safe, be grateful for your job, your health and the comforts your home offers. 

By the way if you see someone in a HCW uniform, just smile.. if you can't smile, don't walk away until you at least give them a thumbs up. 

 

[Jamesc]

On 4/23/2021 at 9:34 AM, Kxbc said:

Those who said the injection cannot be felt or didn't know injection already in must have elephant hide leh. 😁 

Hahaha the first time I never felt it.

The second time I felt it and it was a bit painful lah. Not like so pain feel like dying but definitely felt it.

Its very simple. The first one the lady really got skill, technique and experience.

The second one really don't have.

The first one ask me to breath in and out twice and said can go.

The second one never ask me to breath in and out and when see me doing that - she even ask me Oh you do that huh?

Then when I told her, first time no pain and this one definitely got pain

she said - first time you don't know what is going to happen, now you know so that's why got pain lah.

She might as well say - your veins no good one lah!

As if the first time I go for vaccination I so stupid I don't know I getting an injection.

People that do things badly ALWAYS got stupid excuse one.

They don't even need time to think one up

Edited May 8, 2021 by Jamesc

[Mooose]

1 hour ago, Jamesc said:

Hahaha the first time I never felt it.

The second time I felt it and it was a bit painful lah. Not like so pain feel like dying but definitely felt it.

Its very simple. The first one the lady really got skill, technique and experience.

The second one really don't have.

The first one ask me to breath in and out twice and said can go.

The second one never ask me to breath in and out and when see me doing that - she even ask me Oh you do that huh?

Then when I told her, first time no pain and this one definitely got pain

she said - first time you don't know what is going to happen, now you know so that's why got pain lah.

She might as well say - your veins no good one lah!

As if the first time I go for vaccination I so stupid I don't know I getting an injection.

People that do things badly ALWAYS got stupid excuse one.

They don't even need time to think one up

you really should have asked her to jab you in the buttocks instead .. 

[Jamesc]

34 minutes ago, Mooose said:

you really should have asked her to jab you in the buttocks instead .. 

Don't want lah.

I think she is just a trainee.

Poke wrong hole how?

[Mooose]

12 minutes ago, Jamesc said:

Don't want lah.

I think she is just a trainee.

Poke wrong hole how?

can lah, just slowly guide her along .. 😄

[Tohto]

MOH has not update our vaccination record for 3 weeks already. 

Not sure how many had already fully vaccinated. 

[therock]

[PSP415]

Had my final jab earlier tonight.

This time can feel a slight ant bite but still considered very mild.

Other than the 30mins observation window, from registration to actual 💉 was less than 5 mins 👍. 

On way out, took 2 bottles of water and  was given a bag containing 1 x 500ml Hand Sanitiser and 1 Reusable Mask. 

Took 1 of this sticker for fun. Was asking the staff jokingly whether it can scare the Covid-19 virus and further protect wearer and she replied "she also wished it can". 😂😂

Stay safe all.

Cheers 

[Kxbc]

I got 4 of those reusable masks when I got my 2nd jab today. Good for me. No need to buy disposable masks for 120 days.