SINGAPORE: People living in Housing and Development Board (HDB) estates from Tampines to Sembawang will soon be able to watch food growing on their doorstep, after the Singapore Food Agency (SFA) launched tenders for nine urban farming sites on Tuesday (May 12).
Located on the rooftops of HDB multi-storey car parks, the sites for rent will be used to farm vegetables and other food crops, as well as for activities like packing and storing produce, said SFA and HDB in a joint news release.
Two cluster sites will be tendered out, one at Sembawang and another at Jurong West.
Consisting of two plots each, these cluster sites will enable production at scale, allowing farmers to enjoy cost savings, said SFA and HDB.
A further five sites – in Choa Chu Kang, Tampines, Hougang, Ang Mo Kio and Toa Payoh – will be offered as single sites.
These individual sites will provide opportunities to “testbed innovative ideas”, said SFA and HDB.
Those interested can submit their proposals via the online Government procurement platform GeBiz before the tender closes at 4pm on Jun 9.
“Proposals will be assessed on their bid price, production output, design and site layout, as well as (their) business/marketing plan,” said the authorities.
The move to find alternative farming space in land-constrained Singapore is part of SFA’s strategy to meet the country’s goal of producing 30 per cent of its nutritional needs locally by 2030, said the two bodies.
It is also in line with HDB’s efforts to intensify greening on estates, they added.
Tuesday’s launch followed last year’s pilot opening of a multi-storey car park rooftop farm in Ang Mo Kio, which sparked growing interest from the industry and the public towards urban farming, said Mr Melvin Chow, senior director of SFA’s food supply resilience division.
“Residents in the area have been able to enjoy fresh produce from the farm at nearby supermarkets, and can witness first-hand the hard work involved in bringing our food from farm-to-fork,” he said.
“We hope that consumers will continue to show their appreciation for our local farms by buying their produce.”
SFA and HDB are looking into opening more urban farms on car park rooftops, with additional public tenders to be launched in the second half of 2020.
More details will be released at a later date, said the authorities.
Last month, a S$30 million grant was announced for the agri-food industry to speed up the production of commonly consumed food items like eggs, vegetables and fish.
It was aimed at further strengthening Singapore’s food security, with the COVID-19 pandemic underscoring the importance of local food production, said authorities.
The Ministry of Health (MOH) has preliminarily confirmed 884 new coronavirus cases in Singapore today (May 12). Out of these, the vast majority are cases involving work permit holders residing in dormitories and three are Singaporeans or Permanent Residents.
This brings the total number of cases to 24,706, with 3,225 patients discharged and 21 deaths.
MOH will share more details in its update later tonight.
For the latest updates on the coronavirus, visit here.
In just eight hours, Sudesna Roy Chowdhury built a website to translate medical instructions from English into Bengali.
The young trainee doctor, who had no expertise in this field, worked nonstop to ensure frontline healthcare workers could use the site to exchange key information.
She decided to launch it to meet the increasing need for interpreters and translators as the number of migrant workers infected with Covid-19 in Singapore rose.
Chowdhury, a 24-year-old Singaporean, said: “Community members from multiple language groups have also stepped forward to create their own versions (of the site), including those in Tamil, Malayalam, Hindi and Telugu. Many more are in the pipeline.”
Morale has improved among Singaporeans, although they are still affected by the health crisis and much work remains to be done, she added.
One email she received stated: “Your (website) will save lives. … On behalf of Singapore, thank you.”
Sony updates the mid-range Xperia 10 phone with a new Xperia 10 II model, which will be available in Singapore soon.
The updated Xperia 10 II model promises the same wide 21:9 display ratio that the original Xperia 10 debuted with, at 6-inches with Full HD+ resolution (2,520 x 1,080 pixels resolution) via its OLED panel.
The three lenses on the Xperia 10 II consist of a 12-megapixel primary shooter with a 1/2.8-inch sensor, while it’s supported by an 8-megapixel telephoto shooter and a wide-angle 8-megapixel camera.
SINGAPORE: M1’s fibre broadband Internet service was facing disruptions on Tuesday morning (May 12), the telco said in a Facebook post just before 8am.
Customers “in the western, central and eastern parts of Singapore” may be affected, said M1, adding that its engineers were “working hard to resolve the issue”.
Some online commenters said the disruption was frustrating as they had to work from home during the ongoing COVID-19 “circuit breaker” period.
“Please work on it fast as I need to (make) calls later. Can’t even call in to customer services line,” said Facebook user Ru Yan’s.
Commenters reported experiencing outage in various areas islandwide, including Ang Mo Kio, Bishan, Boon Keng, Bukit Panjang, Eunos, Hougang, Jurong, Marine Parade, Punggol, Sembawang, Sengkang, Serangoon, Siglap, Tampines, Toa Payoh, Tiong Bahru, Queenstown and Yishun.
Online service tracker Downdetector showed that users started reporting M1’s service outage from early Tuesday morning.
(Graphic: Downdetector)
“We apologise for the inconvenience and will provide updates as soon as possible,” said M1.
The telco later apologised to its customers and offered a one-time rebate on their monthly home broadband fee.
Communications and Information Minister S Iswaran said last week the authorities would work with telcos to increase the buffer of their network capacity. He made the comment in response to a question by Member of Parliament Liang Eng Hwa about the surge in Internet traffic during the circuit breaker period.
CNA has contacted M1 for more details on the outage.
SINGAPORE – One of the two alleged offenders in last weekend’s attack in Bishan is said to have re-offended while out on bail.
Prior to the incident on Sunday (May 10), Gervan Wong Jun Heng, 24, had been hauled to court earlier and handed 24 charges for offences including methamphetamine consumption and two other counts of assault.
Wong and Andre Chen Si’en, 29, appeared in court on Tuesday over their alleged involvement in the attack in Bishan on Sunday that left a man with multiple injuries, including a fractured hand and wounds on his head.
The pair were each charged with one count of using weapons to cause grievous hurt to the 30-year-old man.
Wong now has three pending assault charges in all.
Police said in a statement on Monday that they were alerted to the incident in Bishan Street 12 at around 5.40am on Sunday.
Officers from Jurong Police Division managed to establish the identities of the two alleged offenders through ground inquiries and images from police cameras.
Officers arrested them within 10 hours after the report was lodged.
Applications to implement digital check-in system SafeEntry surged over the weekend as businesses prepared to reopen from today.
The Smart Nation and Digital Government Office (SNDGO) said it has received applications from hairdressers, offices, factories, supermarkets, malls and hotels, among others, to roll out SafeEntry to 29,000 additional premises.
This brings the total number of premises with SafeEntry to 45,000 as Singapore embarks on a cautious resumption of some activities and services following a nearly three-week closure.
Since April 22, businesses such as cake and dessert shops, hairdressing and barber services and traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) halls had been closed as part of stricter measures to contain the spread of Covid-19.
But these can open from today, subject to restrictions released last Saturday.
These restrictions include the use of SafeEntry to record all entries and exits, including of employees and visitors, for digital contact tracing.
For instance, SafeEntry must be installed at hair salons and barbers as people are likely to be in close proximity in enclosed spaces for prolonged periods.
Before reopening his hair salon Hairfair today, Mr Augustine Quek spent yesterday afternoon trying to get the QR code for SafeEntry.
The digital check-in system was developed by the Government Technology Agency and logs the entry and exit of employees and visitors into business premises to facilitate contact tracing.
Since he was not familiar with the procedures required, getting the QR code proved a technical challenge for the 68-year-old hairdresser. He said: “It was more complicated than I expected, but it had to be done for the safety of my customers.”
Business owners and retailers like Mr Quek had to put in place contact tracing apps – such as the SafeEntry system – quickly, draw up plans to ensure the safety of both staff and customers, and deploy safe-distancing ambassadors at their outlets.
Hairdressers, barbers, home-based food businesses, cake shops and various businesses which had to close during the tightened circuit breaker period are allowed to reopen today.
SINGAPORE: It was nothing more than a sore throat and cough, symptoms which in ordinary times would be of hardly any concern.
But these are far from ordinary times and the Singaporean doctor knew that he had to self-isolate. After all, he was part of a team treating COVID-19 patients at a hospital in the UK.
“It was very mild the whole time,” said the doctor, who requested not to be named in order to protect the identity of his hospital and patients. “Based on government guidelines … you have to self isolate. And I felt I had to be responsible and stay at home.
“I had been exposed to so many people with coronavirus and it wouldn’t be wise for me to say it is just a normal virus and continue to walk around.”
While he was largely calm – the mildness of his symptoms were a reassuring sign – there were thoughts that would cross his mind during time spent in self isolation.
“You really think: ‘What if I die now? Was my work really useful? Was it truly meaningful in the end? You definitely get worried. It was a big wake up call,” said the doctor.
“I felt I was letting my team down by staying at home, when they might have needed my help. But on the other hand, I would have let my team down if I went to work and infected the ward should I have been infected by COVID-19.”
NHS staff pause for a minute’s silence to honour UK key workers who have died during the coronavirus outbreak AFP/ANDY BUCHANAN
‘THIS WAS MY JOB, MY DUTY’
Since the beginning of the pandemic, there has have been more than 200,000 cases of COVID-19 in the United Kingdom, with more then 30,000 deaths so far.
“When the coronavirus first hit, it was chaos … It was a ‘I can’t believe it is here’ situation for a lot of people,” said the doctor. “Some people were quite panicked, they were very stressed, partially due to the lack of protection and the lack of protocol … We were just in the process of creating a ward for COVID-19 patients, (but) it was not really complete yet.”
At that point of time, there was no firm policy on the wearing of masks in his hospital, said the doctor, whose daily duties include normal ward work as well as being on call, which involves seeing new admissions and current patients out of hours.
“It was also taught that not disposing of the mask immediately after working beside a patient would spread the virus,” he said. Staff were told not to wear masks in the common areas of the wards because it would be a strain on resources, recalled the doctor.
The shortage of personal protective equipment has been widely reported among the media in the UK. Last month, Robert Jenrick, the secretary of state for housing, communities and local government secretary said there was a “short supply” in personal protective equipment.
“Supply in some areas, particularly gowns and certain types of masks and aprons, is in short supply at the moment, and that must be an extremely anxious time for people working on the frontline, but they should be assured that we are doing everything we can to correct this issue, and to get them the equipment that they need,” he said in comments reported by local media.
At the doctor’s hospital, staff were initially to wear PPE which includes a surgical mask, a white apron, and gloves at the bedside of suspected and confirmed COVID-19 patients.
“I was thinking that I’m wearing this ridiculous little mask, gloves and apron – that’s almost like what my grandfather wears when he goes out – he wears mask and gloves.” he said.
Days later, the doctor was called to attend to a COVID-19 case. The patient’s oxygen levels were low and was coughing non-stop, he recalled.
“(I just thought) This was my job, my duty. I can’t sit outside and let the patient die. I just had to go in,” the doctor said. The patient needed oxygen, but refused on put on the oxygen mask.
“At first the patient didn’t really want to… but then I asked: Do you know about the virus? The patient said: ‘I don’t want to catch the virus’ and was very afraid of that but still wouldn’t wear the mask,” the doctor added.
“I discussed with a doctor, came back to the patient and said: ‘If you don’t wear a mask, you will die’. The patient eventually put it on.”
COVID-19 wards were eventually set up, as were the segregation of doctors into different teams to treat patients, said the doctor.
In addition to their PPE, doctors now also wear an additional eye-shield when at the bedside of all patients. There has also been increased staffing in the doctor’s hospital.
A HUMBLING EXPERIENCE
Working in the hospital has been stressful for nurses and doctors alike, admitted the doctor.
“When you’re working with coronavirus patients and on the busy side of things, tensions are very high,” the doctor said. “I could see some of my colleagues, like the older colleagues with underlying health problems, they were so worried and anxious. I know a senior doctor who didn’t sleep for three days, having to be busy and preparing.”
But at the same time, staff now sometimes find themselves with more time on their hands, said doctor. This is due to many non emergency procedures being scrapped.
“Suddenly the coronavirus came, it was the first time in months that I could leave at 5 o’clock, because many things are cancelled,” he added. “Lots and lots of surgeries, operations, things like that are all cancelled.”
But there remain challenges for medical staff on the front line, he added.
For example, testing is still not widely available in his area at the moment, said the doctor. “If you fall sick, you are told to stay at home,” he said. “Testing is only for people who have to be admitted into hospital and they have signs of the coronavirus.”
Due to confidentiality protocols, the doctor also doesn’t know the number of cases in his hospital. “This is a silent virus, its not like when it hits you see a lot of people sick. You just see staff disappearing, they are self-isolating for a period of time then they are back,” he explained.
Having tested negative, the doctor has now returned to work, attending to patients during this tumultuous period. And alongside his colleagues, he will keep going for as long as is required.
