Say "ahhh"

I was living in China during the SARS outbreak of 2003. I had to take my temperature every morning and report it, along with my fellow teachers, to our office leader-- any hint of a fever would have meant mandatory quarantining. For a week or two we were bussed directly from our homes to work and back, and not able to travel elsewhere. Red banners were unfurled, urging us to remain vigilant and safe as we collectively fought off SARS (or something like that).

Flash forward almost eight years and I again find myself in a part of the world where exotic viruses are bred. Singapore does not take this lightly. Flu.gov.sg is the Singapore government's online hub for up to date information on the threat level (color-coded like U.S. DHS's terrorist threat level), methods of prevention, and lyrics to a song about thorough handwashing.

Earlier this week, I received an e-mail alerting me that the following day we would be required to participate in a "temperature taking exercise." Luckily, I'd already been issued a digital thermometer as part of my school registration package, so there could be no complaining that I was not equipped. When I got back to my apartment, there was a sign by the elevator conveying the same information, that all residents in our complex were to take and report their temperatures by 10am the next morning. It was part of the campus's (and the Ministry of Health's) readiness campaign.

The morning of, before we strolled out for our breakfast routine of little pastries and Kopi-O, I made sure we were compliant. What's three minutes out of our day, to help fight a possible flu pandemic? I jotted down our temperatures (all three of us were under 37 degrees centigrade, even when adding a half degree to Dewi's since we took it under her arm rather than, you know, the most accurate way...). All I needed to do was log on to a dedicated site to report our results. Except the site didn't work.

So now what? Since I've become a student, I've been issued new usernames, passwords, and pins, all with different purposes, to be used in different combinations, some of which I was able to change and others which cannot be altered. Was I using the wrong combinations? No permutation was working. So there must be, as a backup, a number I can call or an office I can e-mail results. Um, no. Our instructions only mentioned the website, the site itself offers no instructions, and the school's webpages on health and wellbeing, disaster preparedness, etc. all direct you to the non-functioning website. Crap.

The last thing I want to do in a country where compliance is not just appreciated but expected is to fail on my first real test. All I could think to do was e-mail the IT department, and 1) alert them that the site was not working and 2) at least let SOMEONE affiliated with the university know that I was being responsible, and that the 3 Vollmers living in Prince George's Park were showing no signs of a fever that morning.

Later that afternoon, I did receive a brief response from IT, informing me that the exercise for that morning was canceled because of the problem with the reporting site. Luckily this was just a drill, because it seems we are not quite ready for prime time.