2003/04/06
SARS, Part II
At the University, school is going on as normal but there are more contingency cases to worry about than usual. That's actually okay as with our class size of 500+ students, there are going to be contingency cases anyways, just more of them. There are some students that are using the media panic to go the health clinic and getting the doctors to give them medical absence to get out of exams. The doctors are wary of spreading any small probability of SARS, so that the medical leave is quite easy to get. In fact, as I said, I had visited HK at the end of March. The SIA 777 was quite empty both going there and back, easily less than a third full either way due to the scare. Coming back, I passed through customs with not the slightest of anything or inspection, and went straight to work the next day. However towards the middle of my second week back, the SARS scare in Singapore reached a new level with school closings, and the head of the department asked me to check with the university health clinic to see whether I was ok.
I was fine, no fever, no dry cough, no itchiness. But as a precautionary measure I was sent home for mandatory leave for two days. Since I have no access to a networked computer at home (that's on purpose, in case you don't know) I just took the two days to catch up on sleep and readings that I had meant to do for a while.
So I guess I should thank the media and the MOE for giving me two days off from email. :-)
At the University, school is going on as normal but there are more contingency cases to worry about than usual. That's actually okay as with our class size of 500+ students, there are going to be contingency cases anyways, just more of them. There are some students that are using the media panic to go the health clinic and getting the doctors to give them medical absence to get out of exams. The doctors are wary of spreading any small probability of SARS, so that the medical leave is quite easy to get. In fact, as I said, I had visited HK at the end of March. The SIA 777 was quite empty both going there and back, easily less than a third full either way due to the scare. Coming back, I passed through customs with not the slightest of anything or inspection, and went straight to work the next day. However towards the middle of my second week back, the SARS scare in Singapore reached a new level with school closings, and the head of the department asked me to check with the university health clinic to see whether I was ok.
I was fine, no fever, no dry cough, no itchiness. But as a precautionary measure I was sent home for mandatory leave for two days. Since I have no access to a networked computer at home (that's on purpose, in case you don't know) I just took the two days to catch up on sleep and readings that I had meant to do for a while.
So I guess I should thank the media and the MOE for giving me two days off from email. :-)
