Singapore — Ex-presidential aspirant Tan Kin Lian wrote in a Facebook post that the reason for the failure in stopping the spread of Covid-19 in Singapore, as well as in Israel, is that mRNA vaccines are “NOT EFFECTIVE against the delta variant.”
On Monday morning (Sept 5), Mr Tan Kin Lian shared a link containing an update on the Covid-19 situation in Israel, which does not use vaccines made in China.
He explained that only Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are used in that country, where there are a “record number of daily cases now.”
He also pointed out that Israel’s daily case count is higher today than before its population, of whom the “vast majority are vaccinated” got their Covid-19 jabs.
“The reason for the failure to stop virus spread in Israel and also in Singapore, is because Moderna+Pfizzer (sic) vaccines, are NOT EFFECTIVE against the delta variant, and the effectiveness will keep dropping every month.”
Additionally, he seemed to be making a claim in favour of vaccines made in China.
The businessman, who ran for president in 2011, wrote that “both Israel and Singapore made the same mistake, of naively and trusting in full, the USA fake news media claim, that wildly overstate the effectiveness of vaccines like Moderna+Pfizzer vaccines.”
He also wrote that “the same USA fake news media FALSELY CLAIM that China vaccines are not effective” but that in the real world, vaccines from China are more effective against the delta variant.
Mr Tan Kin Lian asked readers to click on the link he shared that showed Israel’s COVID-19 case count, which he termed “the exploding and record number of daily virus cases in Israel, which uses the Moderna and Pfizer vaccine.”
He then included a link to the same site for China’s COVID-19 statistics, writing, “Daily virus cases in China which use only China vaccines, has already stabilized and life is back to normal since 17 months ago.”
Mr Tan Kin Lian added that in Bahrain and Chile, both of which use vaccines made in China, the number of virus cases recorded daily has stabilized and that life in these two countries is also “back to normal,” based on the graphs found on the same site.
The efficacy of Sinovac has been in question as there is a reported discrepancy between data that has been reported.
In June, the World Health Organization wrote that based on trials on the vaccine performed in Brazil, Sinovac was shown to have an efficacy of 51 percent against symptomatic COVID-19 infection, and 100 percent efficacy against severe illness and hospitalization.
However, real-world studies in Chile and Indonesia showed significantly higher rates of efficacy for Sinovac, at 86 percent and 95 percent respectively, against symptomatic Covid infection.
TISG has reached out to the Ministry of Health for comment on Mr Tan Kin Lian’s assertions about Pfizer, Modern, and Sinovac vaccines. /TISG
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