This may come across as an argument against the anti-vaxxers (in general) as well as the vaccine-hesitant (specific to Covid-19) in Singapore.
That is not my intent.
For the hardcore, "Andrew Wakefield is a saint", "Medicine is poison!" "Big Pharma is Evil!" "Vaccines causes autism!" anti-vaxxer, science cannot reach them. Logic is beyond them. Reason does not interest them. Facts bore them. They are unteachable/unreachable. They have gone down the rabbit hole, and there's no way to pull them out.
However, there are less "militant" vaxx-reluctant or vaxx-hesitant Singaporeans.
Who may simply be confused. Because there is too much contradictory information.
And one of the reason for the confusion, is the way responsible scientists speak.
How real Scientists talk
Scientists (real scientists) will never say "this cure has NO side effects". They may say, "Of the millions of patients who took this cure, no one has suffered any side effects" if that were true.
More likely they would say, "there is a 0.001% chance of severe side effects" or "out of 100,000 doses given, there was only 1 instance of a serious side effect".
And if they were asked, "can you guarantee that the vaccine will have no severe/long-term side effects for me/my children?" they will likely respond, "the chances of a severe side effect is very very small/very rare."
Which will not be what the fearful patient or parent wants to hear. They want an unqualified guarantee. They want absolute certainty.
But that's not how scientists and doctors speak. A scientist has the humility to understand that they cannot guarantee outcomes, and the logical facility to understand that one can never prove a negative. The way scientists talk is in terms of probabilities, and the evidence so far. But they are ALWAYS open to the possibility of an unexpected outcome. Even if the outcome for 1 million events was as expected, a real scientist will not say that the unexpected can never happen. Only that out of 1 million events there was no unexpected outcome.
But, that's not what some people want to hear. They want guarantees.
[That said, scientists can state unequivocally that certain beliefs are myths or absolutely untrue: for example that the claim that covid vaccines are made from cells of foetuses is clearly untrue. Because that is not the production process. Of course, the scientists were not personally present for all vaccine production. Point is, scientists are also human and revert to human speech patterns instead of ONLY speaking like a scientists. Sometimes if you ask a stupid question, the scientist will give you a snappy answer.]
How Salesperson talk
On the flip side, we have people who will make absolute statements. "This shield is impenetrable! It will stop all weapons!" "This spear will go through anything. Nothing can stop it!" If you are familiar with Chinese parables, the preceding two statements is the Chinese version of "irresistible force meets immovable object". Or "mou tun".
A salesman is trying to make a sale. So his product is the best, and the competition, rubbish. They speak in absolutes. Their claims are infallilble, uncompromising, and indisputable. They do not want you to doubt them. They may even go as far as to give you absolute guarantees.
Or in the case of anti-vaxxers, they want to sow doubt in your mind, make you question your choices, and question whether anyone is right about anything.
Last Week Tonight: Covid Vaccine
At 8:31 in the video: [Anti-vaxxers] "don't need to convince people that they are right. They just need to convince people that no one is."
Confusing people in these confusing times is just unconscionable.
Some anti-vaxxers claim that mRNA vaccines modify your DNA (16:01): "the mRNA does not enter your genome."
Would an mRNA vaccine alter my DNA?
Scientific consensus: No.
Simplified answer: “Think of RNA as a bunch of messages. At any moment a human cell has 5,000+ different RNA messages, and they are all temporary messages, like post-it notes that get torn up by the cells within minutes or hours after being read. Or, actually, like snapchat messages that expire. Temporary messages instructing cells to make one viral protein temporarily, so that it provokes an antibody response”.
Technical answer: mRNA is downstream of the DNA genetic material and all of its editing and replication. Just like the coronavirus itself is not altering your genetic material (it’s also made of RNA), neither would the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines. In contrast, HIV is also a single-stranded RNA virus but is also a “retrovirus”, meaning that it carries RNA to make reverse transcriptase, which it then uses to make DNA from its RNA, and subsequently integrate itself into the host genome. But this is not the case with the coronavirus or the mRNA vaccines being developed to treat it.
Another accusation: "The mRNA vaccine will cause infertility!" (16:30) Not true. During the Pfizer trials, many women got pregnant."
"People died after getting the vaccine!" (17:24) Context! The 23 people vaccinated in Norway were the old and sick. It is NOT unexpected for a percentage of people in that age group and that health to die. The vaccine protects against Covid-19, not DEATH/Mortality.
VAERS - Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (18:24) - anyone can report anything. No one checks. The point of VAERS is to allow the authorities to track trends or patterns - which was how they were alerted to the potential for blood clots with the Johnson and Johnson vaccine.
Side effects do occur. Anaphylaxis: 4.7 per million (Pfizer) 2.5 per million (Moderna), for people with history of severe allergies. Which is why people with a history of severe allergic reactions are excluded from vaccination in Singapore. And also why after the vaccination, you are required to be monitored onsite by the vaccination team. If you are going to have an allergic reaction, it will happen almost immediately (within 30 minutes, usually less), and there are equipment and intervention onsite for the most severe reactions.
Other adverse side effects/reactions
AstraZeneca is reported to have an incident rate of 1 in 100,000 or 1 in 250,000 vaccinations of causing rare blood clots. And here, "rare" refers to the unusual combination of blood clots and low platelet count. However,
... Andreas Greinacher of the University of Greifswald, a German clotting expert.
... who reported the phenomenon in a preprint article, has described the condition as treatable.
“We know what to do: how to diagnose it, and how to treat it,” he told reporters last month, according to Science.
In comparison, obese individuals experience strokes (which are caused by blood clots in the brain) at a rate of 6.1 per 100,000. Women who take birth-control pills have a risk of 4.1 in 100,000 of getting a stroke. Pregnant women have a risk between 3.8 and 18 per 100,000! Who knew getting pregnant could be so risky? Even more risky than getting vaccinated!
More importantly, and relevantly, if you get Covid-19 and require hospitalisation, your risk of stroke is 1400 per 100,000.
Guillain-Barre: So far, about 100 preliminary reports of Guillain-Barre out of 12.5 million doses (J&J vaccine) have been reported. (If all 100 are confirmed, that is a 1 in 125,000). In the US, about 1 in 100,000 will get Guillain-Barre (from any cause) in a year.
Singapore has so far has over 63,000 cases of Covid-19, and 36 deaths. That's about 50 deaths per 100,000 cases, and the number of cases per 100,000 population is more than 1000. Sure, you can say you are not at risk because you don't shop at Jurong fishery port, or frequent KTV lounges, or eat satay at Lorong 5, Toa Payoh.
But statistically, you have a 1 in 100 chance of getting Covid. And 6 in a million chance of dying of Covid. In Singapore, where there are strict mask mandates and safe distancing measures, and irresponsibly people. [Worldwide, the infection rate is about 24,000 per million, and the death rate is over 500 per million. Malaysia's (detected) infection rate is over 29,000 per million, and death rate is 231 per million. ]
Singapore is doing rather well, but at what costs? We are restricted in our natural desire to congregate, we are constrained from doing the activities we love. Our relatively safety is secured with a huge social and emotional cost.
I wonder if perhaps the problem is that Singapore has done TOO good a job. If the chance of you catching Covid is 1 in 100, and the chance of dying from Covid is 6 in a million, then the risk of vaccination, where an adverse reaction could 6 per 100,000 (blood clot), or 1 in 125,000 (Guillain-Barre), or anaphylaxis (2.5 - 4.7 per million) would seem almost as risky or more risky than Covid!
Two points.
1) the "safety" of Singapore comes at the very high price of not being able to live the life that we are accustomed to - social gatherings, eating freely at hawker centres, and restaurants, going to the cinemas, gyms, and yes KTV lounges (if that is what you like). Look to the North to see what happens if or when we become less safe, when measures are not strictly adhered to. So if you are thinking you don't need to be vaccinated because, Singapore is safe, then to continue to be this safe, Singapore has to continue to restrict a lot of social activities.
2) Singapore made a lot of effort to keep our population safe, to keep infection down, to keep death rates down. So would the govt provide DEADLY vaccines? To what end? In any crime, there are three things investigators have to answer: Means, Motive, and Opportunity. There is no credible motive for the government to push an ineffective or harmful vaccine.
BUT... in August of 2021, when the Delta Variant started to make its presence felt in Singapore, there were 8 deaths in 2 weeks. Whereas in the past year, there had only been 10 deaths!
The Delta variant is more deadly. More importantly, all those who died, were unvaccinated.
The need to be vaccinated has increased with the arrival of the Delta variant.
Sources of Vaccine Scepticism, Vaccine-Resistance.
China Vaccine-sceptics
US Vaccine-resistors
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