News and notes from around the interweb:
- Singapore is welcoming vaccinated Americans starting October 19. You have to arrive on a designated flight, test before travel and again on arrival.
- Sydney and Melbourne Amex lounges will be rebranded as Centurion lounges, with improved food and beverage programs
American Express Lounge, Sydney - Maui wants to “phase out” Airbnb and other homeshare rentals.
- Passenger wins ~ $20,000 in slots at the Vegas airport.
Money, money, money, money— MONEY! 🎶 Congrats to David P. of Florida! This lucky winner took home $19,825 after playing the Lock It Link slots in the B Concourse. pic.twitter.com/rTIDfktjyG
— McCarran Airport (@LASairport) October 7, 2021
- British Airways crew told to ration orange juice
- New IHG Rewards members stay twice by December 26 and get a free night worth up to 40,000 points to use within 120 days.
Singapore is 84% vaccinated.
As of today, they are having record high deaths (and cases).
3x-4x more than ever.
Just look up the numbers yourself.
Draw your own conclusions.
(Facts don’t lie – Lots of vaccinated people are dying)
@Don – Singapore has a population of 5.7 million. The 7-day average for deaths is currently 6. Today, there were 11 deaths.
From channelnewsasia.com:
The fatalities are five men and six women aged between 56 and 90. Four of them were unvaccinated against COVID-19, three were partially vaccinated and four were fully vaccinated. Ten of them had various underlying medical conditions, while one partially unvaccinated case had no known medical conditions.
Try some context, instead of the “3x-4x more than ever” scaremongering.
@ Gary — Citizens of the USA need to have a SMART Health Card QR code to prove their vaccination status in order to enter Singapore. Most Americans cannot obtain this QR code yet, including me since I received my shots from the state health department of one of the Dumb Trump States. About 7 states, most major pharmacy chains, and some private healthcare systems participate so far (in the dumbest-of-all Dumb Trump States, Alabama, electronic COVID vaccine cards are actually ILLEGAL). You CAN (and already could) connect through SIN, so all hope is not lost if you want to travel on SQ; you just won’t be able to stopover in SIN.
Quote of the day from one of your readers: “in the dumbest-of-all Dumb Trump States”.
@ Gary — Now I see that you must have the SMART Health Card QR code to connect at SIN, if you arrive on a VTL-designated flight from the USA. There are options from the USA (eg, SFO-SIN) that are operated by non-VTL-designated flights, and you can connect at SIN if you arrive on those, even if you do not have the SMART Health Card QR code.
Let’s leave Singapore in the Too Hard Basket until they return to their senses, possibly sometime in 2022.
Plenty of other places to go that have grip on the possible.
Calling the comments for this post stupid would be an insult to the stupid.
I am a Singaporean who got sick, tired and fed up of the rules and regulations back home so moed to the US to ride out Covid. Don’t be fooled by the welcome mat as you have to fly on designated flights (SQ) and life in the Red Dot is farthest from normal. Cases were 3.700 with a 5 million pop and these numbers have been creeping up. Many deaths among people 50 + and vaccinated. There are restrictions of 2 persons at restaurants, hawker centers, venues and malls with stiff penalties for rule breakers. The same applies to mask wearing. Locals are out and about camera happy to photograph and report any foreigner breaking the rules and post pictures on local SM or Stomp so they get busted. I could go on for for another few pages but I have better things to do.
@C_M
If you think our government is giving out the ‘Actual” figures.. As a Singaporean..I don’t think they are. Its is indeed true that many vaccinated people are being infected and a few dying but the overall cases are definitely a lot higher than they are reporting.
Can you get this SMART thing if you got vaccinated at CVS? Googled this but did not find any measure if this being available at CVS.
Singapore tracks everyone’s movements via an app everybody uses when out and about. It is thus able to provide excellent feedback for residents (and confidence) through publishing EXACTLY where and when a COVID positive person was before they were tested. This is a great use of tracking that I haven’t seen done well elsewhere (eg UK done really badly and causing massive disruption). As for USA, well of course not. No government agency would dare to do something so sensible….
As for if Singapore statistics are accurate, please see the report comparing total deaths and COVID outbreaks worldwide in NYT (March 2021, therefore possibly pre Delta variant). Singapore shows NO sign of government suppression of death statistics from COVID. Their public health admin is quite transparent. IN contrast, USA stats are maybe 20% too low, Thailand deaths, predictably, are 900% the published figures…
Singapore has a significant elderly population and the HDB housing void decks where they tended to congregate may well mean their COVID death rate is higher than it needed to be before vaccinations (compare nursing homes in USA). But the insistence on using only mRNA for the government vaccination program means their vaccinated population very rarely gets fatal infections. The same may not be so true for the private program using Chinese vaccines. Now THAT date will never be published, of course – but the Indonesian data on Chinese shots is available.
And by the way, no you don’t get arrested in Singapore for possession of chewing gum. You just can’t buy it!
@ DJ — Per https://www.commonhealth.org/smart-health-cards — “If you were vaccinated at a retail pharmacy, you may be able to get a SMART Health Card by logging into that provider’s portal:
Walmart
Sam’s Club
CVS Health
Rite Aid
Express Scripts”
Just be sure you don’t do so while in Alabama.