The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted many of us in many ways. A lot of us lost our jobs and have to resort to other means to survive during this pandemic. During these dark times, it is important for us Singaporeans to help each other out. Our editor found this new home baker and decided to support them. We ordered their Lemon Tea Cookies and to our surprise, the taste exceeds our expectation! We got curious and order a couple more like their classic chocolate chip and Thai-tea pink salt cookies.

We can assure you that their tea infused cookies are something that you have never had before and it is a must try! Their chocolate chips cookies uses premium chocolate chips too which melts in your mouth!

They currently running a teacher’s day promotion! But sadly they did not include their tea infused cookies into the promotion. We highly recommend that you tried our their tea infused cookies because it is just so different from others!

If you wish to support local business do visit their website @ nomsssscookies.sg

Remember to use code: NOMSSSS10 to get 10% off your first purchase!

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For a lot of people, this is a terrible time as future jobs are severally affected, some businesses may also end their venture for good. For some other group of people, this may be a good time to upgrade themselves or relax their damaged and fatigued mind from work. We compiled a list of some activities that you might want to pick up, by the end of the circuit breaker, you might emerge as a better and more readied person to face the future.

1. Upgrading Yourself Through Online Courses

If you are one of the few people who complained that you don’t have the time to upgrade yourself because you are too busy, this period is the best time for you to start doing so. There are several online courses that you can attend, making yourself more competitive in the future. In NTUC learning club, there are several courses that anyone can participate to upgrade yourself. There are virtual live lessons categorized into “Adaptive”, “Technical” and “Technology” skill courses. You can even visit the Udemy portal to enroll even more courses, so many courses that you might even be learning something totally different from what you are working as a professional. You can even use your “SkillsFuture” credit to pay for some of the courses. If you want to have a little adventure, you might also be able to learn lessons from YouTuber on several career-related skills. Make full use of the time, you might even find a new field for you to shine in.

Online courses from NTUC Learning hub:

• https://www.ntuclearninghub.com/
• https://www.ntuclearninghub.com/udemy/2.

2. Catching Up The Time with Your Family

If there is anything that any elderly people told me about their regrets, “I hoped to have spent more time with my family” always comes out of their mouths. In a fast-paced society like Singapore, many parents do not have the luxury to spend time with their children, children do not have time to spend time with their aging parents if they are still staying with them. This is a time for many people that have been busy with their work to spend quality time with their family, do not leave any regret when this is all over.

3. Relax Your Mind with The Latest TV Shows and Movies on Your Streaming Platform

With the emergence of streaming platforms such as Netflix and HOOQ, there are a lot of movies and TV shows for people to dive into. However, because of the immense workload that we have on our shoulders, most of us are unable to spend more time to watch all the latest TV shows and movies. Since most of us are working from home, we can almost straight away dive onto our couch and start to watch the latest K-dramas and movies. I have been spending my time watching documentaries and movies on my streaming platform, and it is something I have been missing for a long time.

4. Work Out to Strengthen Your Body

As many doctors and healthcare experts already stated that a strong immunity is not only crucial in the fight against the COVID-19 virus, but it is crucial in our everyday activity against any form of illness as exercise helps to strengthen the immune system. Like all the suggestions above, most of us cannot use the “not enough time” excuse to not exercise during this period. Of course, we must adhere to social distancing during our workout. Do not exercise outdoor with anyone right now, even with your family members in the same household. You may also consider exercising in the comfort of your own home, your family can even join you during the home workout sessions, keeping everyone healthy.

5.Explore the Virtual World of Video Games

Video games exist for a long time and it has evolved into a mainstream entertainment giant in modern time. There are online video games that you can play with your friends across the globe, fighting enemies in a dungeon or just simply amaze at the world that only exist in a server. There are games that offer adventures to touches your heart, giving your mundane life a bit of excitement. There are also games that you can play on your phone that offers you to think critically to solve puzzles. Personally, I have been diving into “Final Fantasy VII Remake” and enjoying how the slums and towns in the game feel so lively. There is also a rise in the gamers’ average age group, older people are getting into video games to enjoy something that many other entertainments cannot offer. Let yourself go and indulge yourself in a game.

We Should Not Take Things for Granted

We are somewhat considered lucky if we are working from home during this circuit breaker period. We are working in a safe environment, at our own pace, or at least as much as we can control, without worrying that we may put any of our loved ones in danger. Essential workers do not have that luxury, especially for people working at the healthcare front lines, facing an unknown and highly contagious virus. Every single one of them worries if they might get infected and infect their families unknowingly while putting food on the table. Let us work hard to get through this pandemic and let us help our family and friends in the essential services by staying at home.

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The Game Changer Arrives

Puns aside, “Final Fantasy VII” (FFVII) was indeed a game-changer in many fields and they continue to make influences to many people around the world. In the early 1990s, video game consoles venture into the fifth generations and the world will see the emergence of 3D graphic gaming as the mainstream for the very first time. One of the newcomers in the industry is Sony’s PlayStation, rocking some of the most advance spec in the machine and third-party developer-friendly approach, PlayStation slowly became one of the most important gaming consoles of the fifth generation. Obviously, Squaresoft, now known as Square Enix, decided to bring their flagship series to PlayStation, the latest entry of the series, “FFVII”.

Series creator and producer, Sakaguchi Hironobu, suffered from the loss of his mother, created the overall theme of FFVII. FFVII story revolves around several themes, from what I can determine, there are two themes. There are as follows:

• Sense of lost and getting stronger by embracing and overcome that lost
• Parenthood by blood or by relationship

The characters and I dare say ALL the major characters went through a certain level of pain after losing something or someone important to them. The interesting thing about these characters is that all of them grow to be a better person, those who did not overcome their loss were corrupted by their grief and become monsters. Not only that, but FFVII also focuses a lot on parenthood. It tackles the notion of “what does it take to be a parent, blood or relationship?” and it was very prominent to any player playing the game. One example and I would not give spoilers to the story, in the game, there is one character who adopted a friend’s young daughter despite having no children himself. He became a very caring father throughout the story and his motivation to do what he does is his daughter. In contrast to this specific character, the main villain went absolutely on the opposite side after learning the truth about his birth, which in the end lead him to do many horrific deeds.

When I played the game way back in 1998, I was too young to understand the deeper meaning of the game, I only understand the cool looking characters and blood pumping battle in the game. Only when I was a little older, I start to understand the story and were blown away by its story. The way that Sakaguchi created the story based on his real-life experiences, splitting his experience on several characters in the game, shows the craftmanship in his storytelling.

Being the first game in the series to adapt the 3D graphic, the developers faced many technical issues as there are not enough references in the industry for what they are about to create. When players around the world finally got their hands on the game, we were blown away by the graphic. It was a game in the 90s, it cannot be compared with the modern video games, but the technical achievement they made is mind-boggling. Developers cleverly used pre-rendered backgrounds to save space, at the same time allow developers to place camera and lighting at specific places to create a cinematic experience not seen in games before. FFVII is also one of the first few games to utilize CGI in gaming, creating exciting cinematic sequences for the world to awe at, the summoning sequence is one good example of those graphics in-game.

Music was phenomenal as well, veteran music composer Uematsu Nobuo, created the music tracks for the game. Out of all the tracks, fans would not deny that “One-Winged Angel” is the most recognizable music piece of the game, if not of the entire series.

A large number of quests to do in-game was also unheard of during the fifth generations, collectibles in-game that assist the player to be more efficient in battle allow the player to seek out every single item to beat the almost undefeatable optional bosses. It is very easy to invest more than 50 hours into the game before all stones are turned.

Impact It Had on Me

As mentioned above, I was too young to understand the game and its story when I played it. When I got older, the story hit me like a brick fired from a canon. It is the first time I ever felt the importance of a person’s past and experience to his or her growth, and I witness many people in real life with several issues, growing up to be a good or bad person depends on how they eventually accept their past. It gave me a different perspective on looking at life, looking at my own past experiences and how they shaped me into who I am right now, enduring and overcome your past will make you stronger.

As soon as I enter my adulthood, I still occasionally go back to visit the world of FFVII to experience the magic again. Right now, working in the creative industry, it impacted me on how I create my work. FFVII is one of the few entertainments that combines narrative, deeper meaning, music, and interaction in a cohesive manner, creating a good glass of wine that everyone loves. I remember how the music always made sure that players feel the emotion when they reached a certain point of the game, especially that one scene. The way that the music made me feel all kinds of emotions. Ask any fans, they can identify which scene it was.

FFVII is one of my main influences when I write any story and put it to film, I always consider music as one of the key components to tell a story, I make sure that my film contains a certain level of deep meaning to my characters’ backstory. Other than my creative project, FFVII also taught me an important life lesson. It taught me to understand a person’s past, sometimes people became who they are right now because they cannot overcome their history and friends like us is essential to help them to be a better person.

Reliving the Legend

In June 2015, I was sitting in front of my computer, looking at the so-called “Final Fantasy VII Remake” teaser. I could not believe my eyes, as time and time again, Square Enix had denied any possibility of an FFVII Remake since they release a technical demo of PlayStation 3, rendering the opening of FFVII. Approximately two minutes later, I roared in extreme excitement along with all the fans around the world, that a remake of FFVII is in the works. It was once deemed impossible and every fan gave up any hope as the year passed by. In order to ride on the hype train, Watanabe Coffee customized their shop into a pop-up Final Fantasy VII Remake themed café. Patrons can order a set meal and receive two random coaster and a dining mat, if you ordered any individual items, you may also receive a random coaster. The café is filled with standees of key artwork, posters, and even the Kai Art action figure. If you are a huge fan of FFVII, this place is a must to fill up your hype for the remake.

Right now, on the 10th of April 2020, after a month of delay from its original release date in March, fans and other players can finally get their hands on the remake. Please be minded, although, through multiple interviews and press conferences, Square Enix has mentioned that this remake is just the first part of the whole project, which will cover to the point when the characters escaped Midgar.

At the time of writing this article, everyone in Singapore should be under the Circuit Breaker period, which means everyone must stay at home to curb the COVID-19 pandemic. It is the best time for anyone to relive this legend from 23 years ago, in modern gaming technology and modern graphics. For all the fans, let your inner child that has been sleeping for more than two decades awake once again, for the reunion.

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According to boxofficemojo.com, over the past 10 years, Singapore contributed almost 100 million dollars per year to the global box office. However, there is a trend that you can observe from the information above, all the number one movie released was all big-budget blockbuster. Very few releases are local movies, and these local films have no choice but to go against some of the biggest movies of the year.

According to Singapore’s Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), the top-grossing movie in 2019 was “Avengers: Endgame”, directed by Joe and Anthony Russo, it earned a total of 18.27 million SGD by the end of its run. In comparison, the highest-grossing Singapore film in 2019 is “Killer not stupid”, directed by Jack Neo, but it only earned only 767554 SGD. Despite being the highest-grossing Singapore movie and released during the Chinese New Year period, “Killer not stupid” pales when compared to other foreign movie releases. In 2019, even the lowest box office earning in the top 10 list from IMDA is “Disney’s The Lion King” also earned five million SGD by the end of its run. Although using box office earnings to judge a movie’s quality is wholly not serving justice, but it also shows how many people paid money to watch the movie.

What exactly happened?

According to the data from IMDA, we can see that in the last three years, 2017 to 2019, most of the high grossing Singapore movies are all Chinese New Year movie. Chinese New Year (CNY) is a very interesting time period for movie releases and is mostly strictly for portraying the holiday mood, there is very little difference between all the CNY movie releases. From the story to the overall theme and even genre, CNY movies contain very little risks and require very little effort to write. As long filmmakers remain on track, making a family-friendly CNY movie, audiences are willing to spend money during this period to catch a movie, thus the very reason why the highest-grossing Singapore movies are mostly CNY movies. However, this is also precisely the problem for local movies. Outside of CNY movies, local filmmakers struggle to produce movies that captivate attention from local audiences.

Creating a genre film is also a huge problem for many Singapore filmmakers, as there is a lot of skepticism over locally produced genre films from the audiences. There is three most common genre in local movies, they are “comedy”, “horror” and “drama”. According to IMDA 2019 film stat, out of the six theatrical releases, two were comedy genre, two were horror, one was drama and the other was a crime thriller. Although there are some non-theatrical, the genre explored still did not go beyond the three genres mentioned.

Lastly, although this is more of a comment from a professional filmmakers’ standpoint, filmmakers tend to have trouble funding their movies from investors. From a business standpoint, local movies have very little probability to earn enough money to make a profit, thus investors either invest a small amount of money or avoid funding movies totally. This also means that the resources for local filmmakers are limited, they are making movies with both hands tied behind their backs. Despite that there are some movies made with extremely low budgets, such as “The Blaire Witch Project” and “Paranormal Activity”, but those are some of the extreme cases, it cannot be applied to every filmmaker’s project.

What Do the Audiences Think?

I have conducted a survey to seek moviegoers’ opinion on local movies, although the numbers were small, the results are interesting. All audiences across all ages watch movies regularly, most people between the age of 25 to 35 years old, many of them are Singaporeans and Permanent Residents. When asked about the names of Singapore directors that they can be named, no surprise, most of them mentioned Jack Neo, Eric Khoo and Royston Tan, but they can’t name many other local movies.

I asked a follow-up question: “Why do you not watch local movies”, this is where the answers get very interesting. The answers were all varied, but they can be simplified into several reasons.

• “Not enough marketing is done to create attention to the release of the films”
• “Not enough exhibition or screening of the local movie”
• “Filmmakers did not explore more than just stereotypes and prejudices”
• “Movies are too identical to one another”
• “Local movies did not explore any other genres than horror, drama, and comedy”
• “Production value and storytelling pales when compared to foreign movies”

Although the audiences rated Singapore movies average around 4.8/10, many of them are still looking forward to local movies if there are more diverse local movies being made, especially if the movies can explore more genres and move away from stereotypes.

We Are Getting Better Bit by Bit

Over the last five years, Singapore local movies are getting more recognition and awards, more new blood is being added into the industry to bring new life. In 2017, director Kirsten Tan was nominated and won several international film festival’s awards all over the globe with her film, “Pop Eye”. Director Yeo Siew Hua also won several international film festival’s awards, including Golden Horse Film Festival and Locarno International Film Festival, which are some of the most prestigious awards any filmmaker can hope to receive.

Singapore filmmakers are also starting to experiment with other genres to increase the entertainment value of their movies. Director Jacen Tan shook the ground with his work, “Zombiepura” in 2018. Prior to “Zombiepura”, there is no attempt to blockbuster movies in the last five years. There are also more future projects that Singapore filmmakers are experimenting to create a more compelling and captivating movie for audiences. A monster movie, “Circle Line” directed by J.D Chua, is working on its post-production, Singapore first monster movie. Fans of a local comic book “Celestial Zone” can also look forward to the movie adaptation of the comic book, as announced by Wee Tian Beng, the creator himself. According to the Facebook post from TCZ Studio, the shoot will commence in 2020, fans can expect more news to surface soon.

Singapore movie does have a lot of trouble and filmmakers must do a lot of proving that local movies can be as good as any blockbuster foreign movie. It is true it is extremely difficult for the local movies to be as spectacular as the latest blockbuster, but the future seems to be brighter than usual. We are most certainly hoping to see local Singapore movies to shine brighter with more local directors testing new grounds.

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The key to solving any pandemic is containing the outbreak, and containment is the first crucial step towards that goal. However, society and human behavior is often the obstacles in containment. Scientists wish to have realistic research data and not just simulation, but they cannot expect a real pandemic to happen every year just to research on human behavior in a pandemic. Lucky for many scientists, in 2005, there is a “virus outbreak” that killed millions, created chaos, able to provide realistic data to researchers and yet has done no damage to our world. Yes, it is a virtual pandemic and many of you might have guessed it, it is the infamous World of Warcraft’s (WoW) corrupted blood incident.

A Trip Back to The Past

Some years ago, Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) is gaining its most iconic entry in the genre, World of Warcraft (WoW). WoW is a game set in the same world as Warcraft, developed by Blizzard Entertainment and released in 2004. WoW is one of the most popular and highest-grossing MMORPG of all time, with a record of almost 100 million registered accounts by 2017 and grossed more than nine billion dollars by 2017, it is very clear that gamers are in love with this game. I was one of the many players, until I broke my computer, gave me a reason to stop playing.

Corrupted Blood Incident

In 2005, Blizzard released a new raid, Zul’Gurub as an update. At the end of every raid, there will be an end boss for players to attempt battle, players will have to defeat the end boss in order to win the raid. In Zul’Gurub, the end boss is named Hakkar The Soulflayer and he is the main reason for this online epidemic.

At the end of the raid, players challenge Hakkar to a battle. Hakkar has a spell named “Corrupted Blood”, which will inflict upon players like poison, they will suffer a fixed amount of damage over time. To make the fight harder, “Corrupted Blood” is contagious among players. If any player is too close to the infected player, the spell will infect the next player, so on and so forth. Low-level players will be killed within seconds, while high-level players can sustain the damage longer, healing spells may also help to prolong the damage long enough of “Corrupted Blood” to subside. Thus, one of the strategies to defeat this boss is to constantly shift position and to ensure other players don’t get infected with “Corrupted Blood”, while healers continue to heal anyone that was infected with the spell.

Developers programmed the spell to be purely contained in the raid, either the infected players died in the raid or the spell goes away upon the end of the raid. However, like many other games, there are bugs or loopholes that developers may have overlooked. Classes such as “hunter” and “warlock” may have their pets out to assist them during the battle, and their pets may also be infected with “Corrupted Blood”. Hunters and warlocks can dismiss their pets into their inventory and continue the battle, however, this is the genesis of the epidemic. After being dismissed, infected pets still retain their status of “Corrupted Blood”, the timer will be frozen as well. When the infected pet was summoned into the world after the raid, the infection begins. Hunters’ and warlocks’ pets started to infect players in the cities and towns, even Non-Playable Characters (NPC) were infected as well. Many low-level players were killed within seconds before they even realized what was happening, the death of NPCs made submitted the completed quests impossible. Although deaths in MMORPG is not permanent, but the inconvenience proved to be a serious enough issue for Blizzard to fix the bug as fast as they can.

Epidemic Spreads Throughout The Continents

Many players were shocked that when they logged into the game, they were almost immediately infected with “Corrupted Blood”. With many low-level players dying left and right, high-level players thought it might be a regional bug that they are experiencing. They start to use teleportation spell to travel to other in-game cities. Unbeknownst to them, they are bringing the spell to other cities and infect even more players in that city, causing more deaths to players and NPCs alike.

Since this is a virtual epidemic with no real-world damage, there are players who are essentially “agents of chaos”. These players went to the infected cities, getting themselves infected, then travel to other cities to infect even more players and NPCs, spreading to even other affiliation or even safe havens. This act further created more chaos among players and developers are working hard on fixing the bug.

If there is a shadow, that means there is light. Some players decided to gather everyone that was infected with “Corrupted Blood” in a big city, while making sure those not infected stay away from the quarantined cities. As there is no known method for the players to fix the epidemic, unlike in real life, the only way to stop the spread is to allow infected players and NPCs to die off and respawn. It finally ended when Blizzard did a reset on the server and apply fixes to the bug, making pets to unable to get infected with “Corrupted Blood”. This epidemic lasted one week, despite not a real-world epidemic, the behavior of many players has made scientists take notice of this incident, reaching out to Blizzard in order to research this even further.

Implication on Real-World Human Behaviors

A virtual world epidemic, a bug in a game, normally only garners attention from gamers and anyone dabble in the gaming industry. However, the behaviors portrayed by the players caught the attention of scientists and researchers in the CDC and various agencies, as it provided a significant statistic data and research model for them to utilized to understand real-world problems.

In March 2007, an epidemiologist physician from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Ran D. Balicer, published an article in journal, citing the similarities between the Corrupted Blood incident and the recent SARS and avian influenza outbreak. Specifically, he is referring to the Corrupted Blood incident to a real-life epidemic. Similar to a real epidemic, it was first started in a remote and uninhabited area, through contact with human and animals, it was brought out of the remote area and start spreading among crowded communities. Just like in the real world, some of the infected people were asymptomatic and yet continues to spread the infection around the community. The infection is then finally taken notice by the authority and the people, but many times, it was a little too late to contain a widespread infection.

Once a community spread occurs, communities then start to quarantine the infected in a specific area and reject anyone else to enter the area until the epidemic was over. However, there will be people entering the quarantined area for various reasons, then get infected and bringing the virus out of the quarantined area, spreading it even further to any remain safe havens. In real life, some of these people may be members of the media reporting the epidemic in the region, or there are people with power and authority who enters to supervise the control. Not to mention there are records of people leaving the infected area while hiding their symptoms, so they can avoid being quarantined, unbeknownst that they are making the containment of the epidemic even more difficult than it already has.

Outside of medical and epidemic researches, there were even analysis conducted for terrorism. Charles Blair, the deputy director of Centre of Terrorism and Intelligence Studies, stated that the Corrupted Blood incident provided a new method of studying how terrorist cell group forms and operate, referring to the players who spread the “Corrupted Blood” around the virtual world of WoW. He mentioned that because WoW involved real people making real decisions while bound with a certain limitation, a realistic model for military intelligence analysts.

Despite all the various agencies using the incident and even the game as a research model, Blizzard stated and still maintains their position that WoW is a game, not designed to mirror the real-world or any aspect of the real world.

Connecting The Dots to The Current Covid-19 Epidemic

If any readers are up to date to the current reporting of the Covid-19 epidemic, the Corrupted Blood incident is scarily accurate to what has happened. The infection was first thought to be in a seafood market, where there were raw wild meat being sold, believed to be the origin of Covid-19. Although the identity is still unknown, patient zero then start to spread around the area, spread to more people around him or her, which then slowly became a community spread of the virus

When there was a community infection in Wuhan and various cities in China, the authority then went ahead to shut down the borders in various provinces and cities, only allow certain groups of people to enter and exit the area, in the effort to contain the virus. Coincident, the outbreak happened during the holiday period and before the Chinese New Year period, then there were asymptomatic infected people travel around the world, bringing the virus all over the globe. As of the time of writing this article, there are more than 30 countries being infected with Covid-19, with China having the most infected cases. There were even a few cases where people hid their symptoms so that they can continue with their holiday in foreign countries, but they were unknowingly spreading the virus out of their home country.

The human behaviors of the community, the authority and the rich, were all observed 15 years ago, not to mention it is still accurate to the finest detail.

Solving The Epidemic With The help of Everyone

Like the developers from Blizzard, the key to solving the epidemic is to develop a new and effective vaccine as soon as possible, while containing the infected patients in a quarantined space. It is quite lucky that we don’t need a “reset” to our world to get rid of the virus.

Unlike in a video game, there are no respawn if we die from the infection. Everyone should ensure that they are healthy and avoid anything that may endanger them to any infection, these are some of the guidelines provided by Singapore’s Ministry of Health.

• Avoiding eating and raw or uncooked meat.
• Avoid crowded areas.
• Avoid close proximity contact with people who are unwell or showing symptoms of illness.
• Practice good personal hygiene. E.g avoid sharing food or personal items.
• Frequent handwashing with soap.
• Wear a mask if you have any respiratory symptoms. E.g cough, runny nose.
• Seek medical help immediately if you are feeling ill.
• Defer any travel to Hubei Province, China
• Avoid any non-essential travel to Mainland China
• Avoid any non-essential travel to Daegu City, South Korea
• Avoid any non-essential travel to Cheongdo Country, South Korea

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• USA
• Copohengan
• Paris
• Dusseldorf
• Frankfurt
• Milan
• Barcelona
• Istanbul
• London
• Beijing
• Chengdu
• Chong Qing
• Guangzhou
• Shanghai
• Shenzhen
• Xiamen
• Hong Kong
• Hiroshima
• Fukuoka
• Nagoya
• Osaka
• Tokyo
• Busan
• Seoul
• Taipei
• Brunei
• Phnom Penh
• Siem Reap
• Bali
• Balikpapan
• Bandung
• Jarkata
• Makassar
• Medan
• Surabaya
• Yogyakarta
• Kuala Lumpur
• Penang
• Manila
• Yangon
• Bangkok
• Phuket
• Koh Samui
• Danang
• Hanoi
• Ho Chi Minh City
• Adelaide
• Brisbane
• Cairns
• Darwin
• Melbourne
• Perth
• Sydney
• Christchurch
• Dhaka
• Bengaluru
• Chennai
• Cochin
• Hyderabad
• Kolkata
• Mumbai
• Male
• Kathmandu
• Johannesburg
• Colombo
• Dubai

The reason being is due to the reduction of service on both Silk Air and SIA.

Singapore Airlines and SilkAir have made additional temporary adjustments to services across our network in response to weak demand due to the Covid-19 outbreak.

SIA stated that

“The SIA Group has taken swift action to mitigate the impact of Covid-19. We will continue to monitor the situation, and be nimble and flexible in adjusting our capacity to match the changing demand patterns in the market.

Singapore Airlines and SilkAir apologise for the inconvenience caused.

Affected customers will be notified and re-accommodated onto other flights.

If you have booked your tickets through a travel agency, please contact your agent for assistance. If you have booked your tickets directly with Singapore Airlines, please contact the SIA reservations team at (+65) 6223-8888 if you need any assistance.

As we are expecting large volumes of calls, we seek your patience and understanding that our customer service agents may take longer than usual to respond to you.”

You can view the complete list of the scheduled flight here

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The rise of dengue fever

Before the outbreak of coronavirus reports of the number of dengue is rising steadily.

According to the website, the case of the new dengue strain peaked at 404 cases during mid-January and it is still increasing without any sign stoping.

According to the graph provided by NEA we can see that the number of dengue infections per week ranges between 303 and 404.

In 2019, Singapore experienced the third-highest number of deaths from dengue infection: 20.

And the number of cases this year exceeds last year’s over the same period. Way more than COVID-19.

DenV-3 is a new strain of the dengue virus.

To make the situation worse this new strain of dengue DenV-3 was not detected in the past 3 decades as most of the cases in Singapore were DenV-1 and DenV-2.

With Singapore’s population was not exposed to the new strain of DenV-3 it could mean most of us Singaporean does not have immunity towards it therefore the transmission rate will be higher.

The situation does not end here. NEA further provide new observation where among all the infected patient there is a higher proportion of DenV-3 (47%) as compared to DenV-2 (39%)

At the time of writing, there are 114 active dengue clusters with the largest at:

• Begonia Drive (166 cases)
• Gangsa Road (96 cases)
• Jalan Kembangan (85 cases)
• Ang Mo Kio Ave 10 (67 cases)
• Jurong West St 91 (57 cases)

You can read the entire list here.

The post DENV-3, THE NEW DENGUE STRAIN THAT COULD INFECT MORE S’POREANS THEN CORONAVIRUS. appeared first on unLABELED ft..

It is a miracle that we survived those.

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)

Let us take a breather first before we talk about the big guns, and this is the most recent one that got everyone on earth to be more aware of epidemics in the 21^st century, the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS. This highly infectious viral respiratory disease first broke out in November 2003 and ended roughly around July 2004, infected more than 8000 people and killed almost 800 of them, making the death rate almost 10%. There are several things that are scary about SARS, one of which is that it infects healthy and strong people, making our own immune system to attack ourselves, otherwise known as a cytokine storm, and eventually our death. This means that the healthier you are, the easier you will be infected. At the same time, it is highly infectious among the weak, so once your immune system is weakened, it will spread to the elderly and children around you.

If you thought that is the scariest thing about SARS, the next one should cripple you. There were no vaccines developed that are effective against SARS as of 2020, and how did the SARS epidemic end? It simply disappears, like many other virus outbreaks in the past.

The silver lining about this is that the SARS virus is also a strain of coronavirus, which is also the same kind as the novel coronavirus. With SARS, the world is more prepared against the novel coronavirus, although we still have to make sure to be on our toe on preventive measures.

2) The Spanish Flu

Now, the big ones are coming. First, we have the Spanish Flu, or also known as the 1918 influenza pandemic. This is the first H1N1 virus pandemic, the second influenza pandemic happened in 2009. The Spanish Flu first reported in January of 1918, close to the end of world war one. This virus infected around 500 million people around the world, roughly around 27% of the world’s population of the time. The death toll was estimated at around 50 million, or even 100 million at the high end of estimation. It has infected people from all over the globe, even in remote places like the Pacific Islands and the Arctic. The pandemic finally ended roughly around December of 1920, depends on the region. Similar to the previously mentioned SARS, there was no known treatment or vaccine for the Spanish Flu, because it simply disappears after the second death wave. There was theory suggested that the virus mutated into a less deadly strain, but there is not enough data to back that up. Still, thinking that the novel coronavirus is scary?

3) The Third Plague

One of the most devastating pandemics in history is the bubonic plague pandemic, and the third one is one of the worst among them. It began in 1855, in Yunnan China, during the Qing Dynasty. This plague spread throughout all continents and infected millions of people. It is unclear of the exact number of infected patients, but the recorded death toll was more than 12 million in China and India, as the plague is largely confined in the Asia region. The main carrier of this plague was fleas and rats, while they were transported around trade routes on both land and sea, bringing the plague across the globe and infected many people, similar to the two predecessors of the bubonic plague pandemic, which we will talk about in the next one. Fortunately, according to the World Health Organization, the plague was active until 1960, and we have effective medicine to treat this virus now.

4) The Cocoliztli Epidemic

This is a bit of a rarely mentioned epidemic, but it also claimed millions of lives between 1545 and 1548 in Mexico. There were a few more Cocoliztli outbreak throughout history, but one of the worst happened in 1545. This disease was highly infectious and very deadly, infected patients generally died two to four days after infection, and it was a very graphical and horrible way to go. In a span of four years, it had taken around 5 million to 10 million lives. Luckily for the rest of the world, this epidemic was contained in Mexico. If it were to be spread out with the trade ships, there will be even more deaths around the globe.

5) The Black Death

This is the biggest gun among all big guns, the worst pandemic ever hit humanity, the infamous Black Death, and some called it the black plague. This plague is the second outbreak of the bubonic plague, along with a combination of other forms of plague, making it one of the deadliest pandemic. It is thought to have originated in Central Asia and East Asia in 1346, peaked in Europe from 1347 to 1351. The Silk Road is believed to be the main transportation route of this plague. According to Norwegian historian, Ole Benedictow, the death rate could be as high as 60% of the entire European continent. Although there are no exact numbers, that means the Black Death killed 75 million to 200 million people in Europe, making it the deadliest pandemic in history.

Like many pandemics mentioned in this list, there was no cure to Black Death, it simply disappeared and scientists are still baffled at the disappearance.

The only positive outcome of Black Death was it caused a huge religious, social and economic upheaval, some historians even believe that the Black Death jump-start the scientific research field and reduce the influence of religion in scientific practice.

We are not in the clear yet

There are still many diseases in the world that can cause a pandemic, this list simply mentions some of the deadliest one in history, and we survived through those. This novel coronavirus may not be the one to ultimately end us, we should still practice good personal hygiene and make sure we exercise enough to maintain the strong immune system. At the time of writing this article, there are already more than 40000 infected people of the novel coronavirus, but it is still well contained in each region.

Let us work hard and work smart, show more care for people around us, in the midst of a virus outbreak.

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1) Forest Fire Everywhere

2019 is one hot year, figuratively and literally. There are many wildfires around the world and some of them happened in the weirdest place of all. In the United States, the California Wildfire took many lives and houses along with natural habitat. The end-of-year wildfire in Australia devastated many people and wildlife alike, and the tundra and snow forests in Alaska and Siberia respectively were also on fire. Those are some of the high profile wildfire incidents that were reported widely, at the time of writing this article, there are more wildfires in the Africa region and South America region still burning as of now. Think again when you take in oxygen, they may be scarce if these burning continues.

2) Impeachment of Donald Trump

Exactly one week before Christmas, one of the biggest holiday season in a year, Donald J. Trump, the 45^th President of the United States of America, was impeached by congress and now facing trial for the removal of office. This means Donald Trump is the third US president to be impeached in history. While what he has done that led to the impeachment is too long for this discussion, this impeachment will send a ripple around the world. Being one of the biggest and strongest country on earth, the impeachment could cause a lot of distress towards the US, especially towards their ally. The result of this trial and impeachment is still yet to be observed, but it is nonetheless one of the biggest event of 2019

3) Hong Kong Demonstration

Another political driven event that took up a lot of column space on newspaper (do people still read them?) and our social media page, but it is a serious issue that we should look at. The origin of the demonstration started when Hong Kong people were displease with the extradition bill proposed by Carrie Lam, the chief executive of Hong Kong. The demonstration is still ongoing at the time of writing this article and it has heavily affected many people around the region and Hong Kong citizens. Businesses pulling out of the island and small medium businesses embracing a nose dive in their revenue. While the motive and moral of the event is subjective, the demonstration definitely left a mark in history.

4) PMD ban in Singapore

Let’s bring things back to our home ground, Singapore, what happened in our Lion City? PMD, Personal Mobility Device, are banned in Singapore in November, the ban will then enforce on 1^st January 2020. This has affected hundreds and thousands of food delivery riders, as PMD is their main form of transport without forking out a lot of money for a motorbike, which is the cheapest option other than PMD. This PMD ban passed, due to the multiple collision cases throughout the years, there are some cases where elderly people died from collision injuries. Voices were loud, calling to ban PMD as many claims the riders are too much of a threat on the road. Even though many riders adhere to strict regulations and maintaining a safe speed, they are also affected by the ban, rendered many PMD worthless.

5) The End of Eras

2019 is also a year where many legends come to an end, many eras wrapping up and saying good byes. The Marvel Cinematic Universe ended the “Infinity Gauntlet” saga with “Avengers: Endgame”, many fan beloved characters like Iron Man and Captain America ended their stories and passed baton down to the next generation of heroes. Another big movie franchise also ended their latest saga, “Star Wars” ended what their fans like to call, the sequel trilogy, with “Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker”. According to Kathleen Kennedy, the current president of Lucasfilm, the Skywalker saga has ended and all is possible in the future. Another fan favorite film series also ended just a little before Christmas, Ip man. Ip man series ended the franchise on the 4^th entry in the series and it ended with a bang, breaking box office record everywhere. Ip man series is so popular that it even beat Star Wars twice in box office with Ip man 3 and Ip man 4. Fans may be disappointed that Donnie Yen, who played as Ip man, announced that “Ip man 4” is his last Kung Fu film and he would focus on other various projects.

2019 sure is a huge and eventful year, not all were good and pleasant events are few and far in between, yet it still gives us something to look forward to in 2020. Let us all march forward and make 2020 the best year for us.

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No Successor

For many decades, we have enjoyed local food at our fingertips. Sometimes, we may also enjoy it with our parents and our children, spanning across generations. Not only that, there are many hawker stalls that are more than 50 years old. However, many parents taught their children, and still do, to be highly educated in order to have higher-paying jobs with very little physical work required. This resulted in many children having the wrong impression that hawker is not a worthy career to even consider.

As of right now, many hawker owners are getting older, some of them are in their 80s, yet they are still operating today. Many of them are not retiring due to some very simple reasons, some of them reflected me that either they do not want to end their business and spend the rest of the day doing nothing or they are hoping their customers can get to enjoy good food as long as they can.

It does shine a very sad light upon the future of our hawker culture, as many famous hawkers ended when their culinary skills and recipe did not get passed down to the next generation.

Increased difficulty in operating a hawker.

In contrast to many people’s prejudice, operating a hawker stall is not as simple as it seems. A hawker owner will have to adhere to many examinations and criteria before they can start their business, they have to attend hygiene course as a requirement from NEA, ensuring all operators are able to produce food in a hygiene manner. Not only that, each stall will be graded based on the standard of hygiene, if it is too low, the owner may not be able to continue to operate their stall. Although it is extremely important to the operator and hawker patrons, it does prove to be an obstacle for any potential hacker to start a new business.

All of us enjoy having our favorite meals in a hawker center, or a name is commonly known by older generations, “Kopitiam”. Roughly translated into “Coffee shop”, they exist throughout history and lasted to this day. Now, these coffee shops are facing the biggest obstacles of all, rental. As Singapore constantly developing its own infrastructure, the rental of each stall is also getting higher. If the location is good enough, the rental will reach a ridiculous price. Many operators wanted to maintain a low-priced hawker food, but the high rental fee proves to be the straw that broke the camel’s back, resulting in many operators to fold up their business for good. Rubbing salt in the wound, many large corporations also required the owners of the stall to pay 10% to 20% of their weekly avenue on top of the rental, this is not helping to preserve and prosper the hawker culture.

Change in eating habit

People’s eating habit changes every now and then, but they are mostly following a trend. A few decades ago, people looked at the taste and price of their food, which is the attraction of hawker food. In the last decade, people are looking for healthier food, low carbohydrate, salt, sugar or even trans-fat free food are the key components. Hawker food of the old cannot provide or very little healthy choice for patrons. Thus so, many patrons decided to avoid hawker food to pursue a healthier lifestyle.

Hawker food also faces the challenge from celebrities’ restaurants and cafés, eating places such as these offer food and creative dishes patrons won’t be able to find in hawker food. As such, many younger foodies will favor such restaurants and cafes. Some of these places even offer food at a lower price too, thus more attractive to younger foodies.

It is not all dark and moody

There are certainly a lot of factors that cause many hawker owners to end their business, some even put potential hackers at bay from starting their journey in culinary. However, there is still hope for our hawker culture.

There are some younger hawkers either started their business in the culinary world or taking over their parents’ legacy and continue on to bring good food to their faithful customers. We have mentioned quite a few times of the Delicious Boneless Chicken Rice, located in Katong Shopping center. As the first-generation owner was approaching their silver years, the future of their stall seems bleak. Until 2018, their son, Soki Goh decided to start learning their culinary skills and operations, so the first-gen owner can retire while the stall continues to the next generation.

Another stall that also successfully passed down to the next generation is “Teck Huat Coffee Roti”. The first-generation owner, Tony Soh, has passed the baton to his son, Alvin Soh, to run the multiple stalls around Singapore and seemingly operated with much higher efficiency.

Singapore government also implemented several policies to further assist hawkers to operate and keeping prices low. In 2018, Senior Minister of State in the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Environment and Water Resources, Dr. Amy Khor, mention focussing on improving the Social-Conscious Enterprise Hawker Centre (SEHC) model that was already implemented into the seven new hawker center back in 2018. The SEHC is programmed to give support to stall owners to manage costs better, allowing better oversight for a regulator like the National Environment Agency (NEA) to take care of hawkers. Singapore even nominated hawker culture for 2019 UNESCO Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage, in the hope to preserve the hawker culture in Singapore for future generations.

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