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SINGAPORE – A Covid-19 vaccine is not risk-free, but the risk is small, and a person, in fact, puts himself, loved ones and society at greater risk by not receiving a vaccine, the officials said. experts in a Straits Times Reset webinar. The AZ vaccine for Covid-19, on Thursday (December 17).
“It’s not about saying, if I don’t do anything, we’re fine. The weight is really not between the vaccine and nothing, but between the vaccine and the disease,” said associate professor Lim Poh Lian, senior director of isolation unit. at the National Center for Infectious Diseases and member of the Committee of Experts on Covid-19 Vaccines of the Ministry of Health.
“Being afraid of (getting vaccinated) just because you’re afraid of that very small risk will actually harm a lot more people.”
ST’s webinar was held just days after Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong shared Singapore’s Covid-19 vaccination plan in a televised speech on Monday.
Hosted by ST Senior Health Correspondent Salma Khalik, the webinar also featured Professor Ooi Eng Eong from Duke-NUS College of Medicine and the President of the Singapore Pharmaceutical Industries Association, Ashish Pal.
Public interest in Covid-19 vaccines is high now that the government has announced that the first shipment from the American pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech will arrive here by the end of the year.
Since Covid-19 vaccines are new and produced at record speed, some people have taken a wait-and-see approach to vaccination, even as Singapore is beginning to reopen its economy and borders further.
“The challenge is really if you don’t get vaccinated, you’re not protected,” said Professor Lim, who also runs the Travel Health and Vaccination Clinic at Tan Tock Seng Hospital.
If Singapore is hit by a second wave, it will be much more difficult to respond by vaccinating many people in the middle of it because health systems will be busy and there may be more stringent safe distancing measures, he said.
Professor Lim also said that the Pfizer vaccine requires two injections, and it can take up to five weeks for full immunity and protection to kick in.
While the outbreak is currently controlled here, there are still imported cases, and each imported case could trigger a cluster, he warned.
Professor Ooi, who is the principal investigator for a Covid-19 vaccine who had early-stage trials conducted in Singapore, said: “Even if we have stockpiled enough vaccines to cover the entire population of Singapore, implementing the vaccine takes time.
“So if we wait until an epidemic hits us and then we say, ‘OK, now I want a vaccine,’ well, they might not be in line on time, right?”
While Singapore currently has zero community cases, it comes at a very high price as many people are affected by the control measures against Covid-19, said Pal, managing director of the pharmaceutical company Merck Sharp & Dohme in Singapore and Malaysia.
“If you think about the economic contraction that this has had around the world, I think the only way to start this process and put the world in order is to allow the free movement of people,” said Pal.
Professor Lim said that vaccination is “a journey of a thousand miles, because we have to vaccinate everyone. Actually, we are only as strong as our weakest link.”
“The best minds in the world have worked on this and we have paid good money for vaccines and we have analyzed it as much as we can,” he said.
As a doctor, you will be among the first to get vaccinated. “The proof of the pudding is in eating … They are our families, we are ourselves, they are the people we care about on the line. Therefore, we would not recommend it unless we consider it to be effective, safe and of good quality.” . she said.
“We want everyone to think about getting the vaccine, not just for you, but because you need to protect the people around you.”
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