Jet lagged, I was up late many nights looking out the window admiring the view of the city. I was looking at people hanging out in the back lanes. I couldn’t help but felt like I was spying on them.
14 days
It’s kind of like an extended holiday, except that you might have to work while at it. A very long staycation, except that you don’t get to use the gym or the pool. It starts when you arrive at the airport. They’ll put you on a nice bus along with the others and you are all supposed to hit it off instantly by virtue of your collective predicament, chatting away, speculating where you may all end up.
If the bus pulls up at a nice foyer, you hit the jackpot, a sigh of relief. Yes, it is a nice hotel!
They’ll check you in, and even get you a lift just for you. And then the bellhop shows you your room. You get in and another sigh of relief — a room with a view! And a damn good one. You think the gods must be smiling upon you by this time. And then you tell yourself, “14 days to go.”
Welcome.
The Stay-Home Notice (SHN) is a legal notice issued under the Infectious Diseases Act that requires travellers to remain in their place of residence or SHN Dedicated Facility (SDF) for a stipulated period. The failure to comply with any SHN requirement is punishable under Singapore laws and can amount to an imprisonment term and/or fine. Additional penalties such as the cancellation of long-term visit passes could also be taken against errant individuals by the relevant authorities.
The first couple of days were the toughest. It was the weekend and the sun was out and we imagined ourselves cycling to the beach like we always do.
We will have to make do with staring out the window for now. We were lucky to have taken a trip out for the summer. Away from all the restrictions and measures to curb the rising numbers of Covid infections.
Back to the grind, it was time for WFH while we served our SHN. That is Singaporean for Work From Home and Stay Home Notice (though I have no clue why they called it Stay Home Notice since we weren’t allowed to stay home for this quarantine). In order to keep ourselves and others safe, we had to take a Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) test before boarding the plane, another one upon arrival, 3 self administered Antigen Rapid Test on days 3, 7 and 11 of our quarantine and finally another PCR test just before we were released back into general population.
I also set up my work station in my own corner office. It took a while to get used to working like this but I managed to edit quite a few projects during our stay.
Sometime in the middle of our quarantine, history was made. Man had sent a rocket into space purely for the fun of it. A real WTF moment "We have all the money to send a dick into space but we still can’t figure this covid BS out??"
Sleep deprivation is a funny thing . I looked at my pillow, it got me thinking of the mountains we saw on our trip.
Looking back, It was strange to be at the airport. There were no queues, no waiting. The process of flying was so familiar yet foreign.
It was like a ghost town. The waiting lounge was nearly empty.
We haven't been on the plane for nearly a year and a half
Jet lagged, I was up late many nights looking out the window admiring the view of the city. I was looking at people hanging out in the back lanes. I couldn’t help but felt like I was spying on them.
The quarantine made me feel like we were being watched. Not spied on but checked on for our own good. Someone would call on my mobile identifying themselves as representatives of the Safe Travel Office checking if we were still in our hotel room. They would ask for visual confirmation of our whereabouts through the video chat function. We got these calls almost everyday. Where else could we be if not here in the room I thought.
I had read some stories about some funny things people did while under quarantine, breaking the law and ending up doing jail time. It really isn’t funny when you end up being incarcerated for breaking some simple rules. Perhaps these rules aren’t so simple when they are viewed by people from loose cultures. ¹ They might not see the same importance of these restrictions of the tight culture that Singapore has come to be known for. Unsurprisingly, there had been more Covid related deaths in countries of loose cultures versus those of tight cultures.
Between the time spent on work and leisure, we pretty much maxed out our on screen time. We had little space to manoeuvre around but we still managed to set it up for our daily workouts.
The meals came in plastic containers, all the 42 meals - the mains, the desserts and the fruits. They came on time every time - 8am, at noon and 6pm, the door bell rang and the bags would be sitting on the table outside the door. They were mostly chinese-style bento with some continental breakfasts thrown into the mix occasionally.
After a while, everything tasted the same, it was like a bland routine, eat, sleep, chill, repeat. Easy to live without using much processing of the brain.
I wonder how people managed to do three weeks of quarantine. Perhaps the only way to go about it was to have a sort of extended staycation while doing the SHN. Do it with an upgrade from the many suites that are offered.
At it’s peak, travellers arriving in Singapore were required to do a quarantine of 21 days at a Stay Home Notice-Dedicated Facilities. As of 7 October 2021, the SHN was reduced from 14 days to 10 days due to the shorter incubation period of the Delta variant.
In the end, we spent just about 2000 USD for the hotel room for the SHN and an aditional 600 USD for 3 mandatory Polymerase Chain Reaction tests.
As of 13 October 2021, unvaccinated individuals were no longer able to dine out, go to shopping malls, hawker centres, coffee shops or visit attractions. At the same time, 83% of Singapore’s population had been fully vaccinated.
This project is dedicated to the brave souls working in the frontline fighting the pandemic. I like to take this chance to acknowledge them for their hard work and bravery. Thanks also goes out to the beautiful people who sent us the fresh food, fine wines and other goodies, they really made our stay a lot more bearable.
¹ Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: How Tight and Loose Cultures Wire Our World
by Michele J. Gelfand, Scribner.