Singapore — In an open letter to Finance Minister Lawrence Wong, one netizen questioned the differentiated measures for those vaccinated as compared to those who had not received their vaccination, calling it possibly “the most unfair discrimination”.
In a Facebook post that was written on Jul 27, but was recirculated once more on Thursday (Aug 5), the netizen, one Ms Ruxin, wrote: “Until now, no one in this world is able to tell us the scientific conclusion of what COVID vaccination will do to our body”. She added that everyone was getting their vaccinations at their own risk.
Ms Ruxin wrote that while both she and her immediate family members were all vaccinated, there were people who were genuinely worried to be vaccinated.
“They didn’t disobey the calling to get vaccinated. They are mostly just afraid of the unknown”, she wrote.
She suggested that in order to be a more inclusive society and take the worries of these people into consideration, restaurant owners should decide if they want to allow those who were not vaccinated to dine in. She also suggested a separate seating area in coffee shops and hawker centres for those who were vaccinated.
Ms Ruxin said: “We all now have concrete proof that Entry points like Woodlands, Changi, Fishery Ports are the ones we need to fiercely guard, and implement new PRIMARY measures to PREVENT or REDUCE the virus from coming in.
Measures to reduce Community transmission is a secondary measure”. She explained that if the entry points are well taken care of, there would be barely anything to worry about when it came to community transmission of the virus.
“To live with COVID, we need to invent a new system. One that’s not a knee jerk reaction”, she said. She noted that Singapore is a small country and that by differentiating those vaccinated from those who were not, it affected the basic rights of people.
“As a Government body, if you are not taking responsibility of (sic) the liabilities of COVID vaccination and we are being vaccinated at our own risk, then why can’t we dine in at our own risk?”, she questioned. /TISG