Singapore — Lawyer Lim Tean criticised the PAP government’s policy on Covid-19 vaccinations in a Jan 18 Facebook post, adding that he is “fully sympathetic to those who have chosen not to vaccinate or cannot be vaccinated.”
Mr Lim, who heads the People’s Voice party, clarified at the start of the post that he is fully vaccinated, having gotten Sinovac jabs, and also received a booster shot last month.
However, he added that “governments cannot conceal from citizens information which is readily available on the internet” and expressed concern over “the potentially dangerous side-effects of the vaccine” which he said came from “various reports from very credible sources.”
Mr Lim did not mention which particular vaccine he was referring to, although it may be presumed that this pertains the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, which use mRNA technology and were the first to be approved for emergency use in Singapore.
The only other approved vaccine in the country is Sinovac, which uses technology involving inactivated viral particles.
However, study after study, both in clinical trials and in the real world, have shown that mRNA vaccines have about 95 per cent efficacy rate in providing better and more sustained protection against Covid, while Sinovac’s efficacy rate has been shown to be between 51 and 80 per cent.
Moreover, it has been widely reported that China, which produced Sinovac, is in a race to produce its own mRNA vaccine in its efforts to control a Covid-19 outbreak due to the highly transmissible Omicron variant.
According to Mr Lim, the “PAP’s strategy is clear, force the population to be vaccinated and open up the economy as fast as possible. Live with the enemy virus.”
He wrote that the People’s Voice party considers this as a “reckless approach” and that Vaccinated Travel Lanes (VTL) “are a sure source of impending disaster.”
“Nothing suggests this government is going to change from its disastrous course. And the signs are that Singapore will be hit with another huge wave of infections soon.
The sad thing is that these new ‘waves’ need not happen and are the direct result of the PAP’s reckless policies to make the virus endemic,” he added.
The opposition leader also called out the ruling party for encouraging booster shots, citing news from Israel on Jan 18 saying that a fourth Covid vaccine jab is proving to be less effective against the Omicron variant.
Instead of booster shots, Mr Lim called for restricting foreign travellers from entering Singapore, “The number of imported cases Everyday is inexcusable and they are from fully-vaccinated people.”
He added that “We are also far better off advising our people to boost their natural immunity,” by which he meant eating and sleeping properly.
“But that will be difficult to achieve in current times because we have a government which is hell bent on increasing the cost of utilities, transport,GST etc. Everything that will drive up the cost of living, this government is doing,” wrote the opposition leader.
Last month, Mr Lim announced that he was leading a legal challenge to government policies he believes discriminate against the unvaccinated. /TISG
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Lim Tean leads legal challenge against MTF, MOM, MOH for ‘discriminating’ against the unvaccinated