I may be the least qualified to talk about this chilling possibility but I do hope it would prompt the experts to open up and discuss it to educate the masses and the policy makers of the unusually high risk the people are being exposed to a deadly plague or biological epidemic. We are all familiar with the obsession of the Australians in guarding their island continent from an invasion of foreign microbes, organisms, bacteria or viruses that could destroy lives and the ecology of their continent. If there is a world wide epidemic that threatens the existence of the human race, Australia is likely to be the last bastion where some humans and living things could survive.
Japan is another country that is fairly secured from such threats but through their stringent immigration policy. Immigration is not like some simpleminded folks chose to believe in, all about economic growth. There is national security involved, not the political or military kind, but biological and chemical invasion. The world is still threatened by many deadly diseases, SARS, bird flu, MERS, ebola, TB and many others that the medical professionals would know best. And the earth is infested with uncountable microbes, organisms, bacteria, viruses and with many new ones being formed every second through mutation or cross breeding. The water, soil, air and mud on the land are filled with all kinds of organisms specific to a location.
Japan is safe in the sense that it does not freely encourage a free flow of immigrants to its islands. It is quite homogenous and those entering Japan are few and with lower risk of being carriers of deadly diseases. Their jam packed trains are clean and hygienic from this standpoint as the people are mainly Japanese and have lesser risk of introducing new diseases.
Our reckless immigration policy for economic growth brings in millions of foreigners from the far flung nooks and corners of the earth, from little 3rd and 4th World villagers. And these people bring along the microbes, bacteria and organisms that are new to our clinically clean citizens with no immunity or defences against them. And the probability of them passing on to the citizens is so high given the ratio of 1 foreigner to 1 citizen or higher, and the close proximity when they are jam packed in the trains, exchanging their breaths daily many times a day.
Our super clean and unprotected children are also highly exposed to these organisms and diseases carried by the foreigners without anyone raising any alarm or care a hoot if they are infected and the diseases spread wildly. The very same school buses that ferried our innocent, hygenic and angelic children to schools every morning are the same buses that fetched the foreign workers all over the islands at night. And they did not disinfect the buses before picking up the children. Get the picture?
But who cares as long as it is not my children that are going to be infected, like NIMBY is ok. The elite would only wake up if they know that their children and themselves are just as vulnerable to such diseases as their children are exposed to other children in schools and they themselves are exposed to the train commuters in the office or food courts or common space and leisure areas.
The whole island is highly exposed to deadly diseases because of our reckless economic policy of allowing millions and millions of people into this little place. And we can be history just as fast as the immigrants come in and leave after their sojourns here. We keep changing them like tissue papers and waiting for that one batch that is unclean to do the damage.
Immigration is not just economics. There is a big health risk involved. Would the health experts like to discuss this subject openly to create awareness? Have they been talking or have their mouths been zipped? This is a deadly chilling tale that is waiting to happen, waiting to be told, waiting to wipe the population of this city to oblivion.
Chua Chin Leng AKA RedBean
*The writer blogs at http://mysingaporenews.blogspot.com/