The recent admission of a 3 year old in the ICU of KK children's hospital as a result of contracting the seasonal swine flu, starts me thinking if Singaporeans are civic conscious would we be in a better position to prevent the pandemic from spreading? I am sure one may conclude with a resounding yes. But hey how many actually walk the talk?
I recalled when ngee ann postponed their first day of school, both chris and I were hoping that SP may do the same so he could work from home since students are so well travelled these days. However that didn't happen. In fact Chris ultimately did fell ill, not a result of the influenza, but overheatiness caused by superb durians from malaysia!! He got a fever the very next day, which slowly developed into flu like symptoms. Fortunately, being kiasu parents, we've pre-prepared couple of boxes of N95 masks (high quality German make direct from source- let me know if any one is keen on stocking up, we are so good at sourcing that we manage to get them at a good factory price). So chris wore them whenever he came near Nat or me. He wore it in the car, in the room and aircon places. He even insisted that I wear it too as there is still a 5% chance of risk. We wore it when we went to crowded places and not surprisingly we nvited lots of stares. Friends mentioned that we were really civic conscious to wear the masks as we shop along Orchard and Tampines One. This gets me to my point. With stats on H1N1 increasing on a daily basis till the extent that authorities decides to produce sporadic reports and only highlight the ICU cases, it goes to show that the level of civic consciousness remains at an unhealthy standard.
Personally I've encountered colleagues who were ill but did not have the decency to wear a face mask or stay away from the workplace. One mentioned that she is not responsible for the rest falling ill.. then WHO should be playing a preventive role? I was shocked to hear such a selfish remark! Doesn't she knows that her presence jeopardises the health of all within the same department / building and potentially spread to the families and wider social circle... Would wearing a facemask make one any less professional? It's all aesthetics! Yes you may find some shunning you for the day but at least one has done his/her part to prevent others from falling ill. I am sure this is not an isolated case and many could relate to this. So how could authorities prevent the spread of H1N1 when there are so many culprits out there who are not at all civic conscious and cares only about their external appearances? Perhaps we should learn from the Japanese! Japanese have no qualms about wearing a face mask as a preventive measure and it does not in any way hinder their professionalism nor make them aesthetically less appealing!
Looking from another perspective, though we use the term 'Kiasee' ( afraid to die) colloquially, we never seem to do well at relating it from a preventive perspective. In this instance, if people are afraid to catch H1N1, shouldn't kiasee-ism drives us to want to wear a face mask every where we go and keep young children and the aged at home or not go to overly crowded places?
I believe civic consciousness stems from showing consideration and it starts at home. As a parent I find it important to inculcate these values to my children. With consideration, you will find that you'll not only be doing what's right for yourself, naturally you'll start to think for the others around you. Yeah, the attitude of our society will not change overnight, but I hope it'll change for the better and civic consciousness should not be a restricted vocab used only to describe the Japanese in this part of the world.
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