For those of us snake oils who have planned or participated in sales promotions or marketing campaigns, have you ever experienced this inconvenient truth?
I mean we celebrate when the marketing campaign has been a success! Get our extra commissions, bonuses; plus accolades and recognition from top management.
But then sales for the next few months dropped quite a bit lower than previous years...
It quickly dawned on us that we have merely brought forward the sales from future months.
In fact, the company would have made more money had we not done the sales promotion in the first place...
What do we do?
Of course next quarter or next year, we will still propose doing the same thing all over again!
That's the difference between hired guns/sellswords from business owners.
Especially when we noticed the business owner is "passive" or not very hands on. Wink.
Got to feel for big daddy.
During early days of Wuhan virus pandemic, got "recognised" worldwide for our zero Wuhan virus strategy.
Compared to the alarming number of deaths and infections around the world, we really stood out.
Even got "luxury" to start planning how to "profit" from this pandemic like in past crises. If we open up before everyone else...
Then discovered we are merely delaying the inevitable...
While other countries have peaked, their deaths and infections numbers coming down...
We are now playing "catch up"...
This is not a smart alec "behind horse cannon" poke. On hindsight, everyone is genius!
This post is for those who like to parrot.
"If you fail to plan, you plan to fail."
Smol,
ReplyDeleteFor the type of S'pore mentality & culture, I think govt has done what can & needed to be done. Afterall, they know sinkies inside out & are master manipulators (they put most snake oils to shame lol).
It's just like soldiers. When you have no weapons & the enemy has a "take no prisoners" policy, you hunker down in bunkers & hide in underground tunnels.
When you start having weapons that can hurt the enemy, you start mounting raids & ambushes, stand your ground in skirmishes & small battles.
Full-scale assaults? Maybe not yet.
It's a matter of spreading out the deaths.
Where govt could have done better is in preparing more ICU equipment, beds & staffing. I mean ... even amateur statisticians & epidemiologists could see where numbers are headed back in Sep.
Spur,
DeleteI agree.
Big daddy's playbook worked very well (got to give credit where credit is due) BEFORE the Delta variant.
That threw big daddy out of even keel...
I don't know whether its complacency, denial, or being shell shocked, but when big daddy starts getting their forecasts "wrong" by a wide margin, I pretty much knew they are making it up as we go along...
I've one thing to offer to big daddy for the next pandemic.
Stop with this "co-chair" nonsense ever again.
Let's get back to the tried and tested, "The buck stops with me."
Hi SMOL,
ReplyDelete"Delay" gives more time to "prepare", no?
Can learn from others' hindsight wisdom also!
Rainbow girl,
Delete"Delay" to give us more time to play catch up in deaths and infection rates?
To hear our medical resources are stretched even after 2 years of "preparation"?
Therefore cannot completely open up like other countries with similar high vaccination rates?
I mean what about hindsight wisdom from countries like Norway, Sweden, and Denmark that have all done away with masks?
To be fair to big daddy, how to plan for something that keeps evolving and changing?
Of course big daddy has learnt from other people's hindsight wisdom - namely Israel.
That's why big daddy was quick to announce booster shots ;)
If this winter another even more powerful variant is discovered that current vaccines have no effect whatsoever, then all bets are off!
0 COVID strategy only works when all countries are aiming for that goal. Else it will just come again, especially when US isn't aiming for 0 COVID.
ReplyDeleteStatistically, SG needs at least 300k-500k total cases before the numbers stabilize?
Assuming 100% vax rate, 5.5 million population.
If efficacy is 5-10% (optimistically), means 275k-550k will eventually get it.
Although I think realistically 70% efficacy already "steal laugh". Which would mean nearly 1.65 million total local cases before numbers stabilize?
ERSG,
DeleteYes, from the get go there a few countries that went their own way.
Sweden with their no lock-down strategy; Britain with their herd immunity strategy.
US? Its clear we can't depend on US for global leadership anymore...
Amazing isn't it? All it took was a few decades, and US has gone from the glory days of Reagan where US "defeated" the Soviet Union, to become like this today...
Basically, what most countries have realised is that we need herd immunity to burn the virus out...
Get vaccinated, get the Wuhan virus with no or mild symptoms, recover, now body got natural immunity!
Of course, along the way, there will be "casualties". Just like on average, we have 800 deaths per year due to normal influenza...
That's the meaning of Endemic.