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SINGAPORE – Brad Bowyer, a member of the Progress Singapore Party (PSP), has questioned the need for masks and social distancing measures to continue, prompting a reprimand from his fellow party member for his “irresponsible” comments.
Bowyer, who prevailed in the general election earlier this year as part of the PSP team at Nee Soon GRC, also voiced his distrust of Covid-19 vaccines in a Facebook post on Thursday (December 17).
On Saturday, Kala Manickam, a member of the PSP, who also stood for election on Nee Soon GRC, criticized Bowyer’s post in a comment.
Ms Manickam said she was disappointed that Bowyer was trivializing the Covid-19 crisis, adding, “Being a Covid-19 survivor, I am extremely disturbed by the misinformation and fear that he is spreading.”
Manickam told The Straits Times that he tested positive for Covid-19 on August 27.
She was the caregiver approved by her mother during her 14-day quarantine after she returned to Singapore from India on August 14. His mother also tested positive on August 26.
He said that, although there were gaps in the government’s communication in the first months of the pandemic, he believed that “in general it has done well in the last months since the elections.”
Mandatory mask use, social distancing, and calibrated reopening of the economy are important measures to safeguard the community, Ms Manickam added.
“In the midst of a public health pandemic, we shouldn’t spread conspiracy theories about vaccines, like what they are doing here,” he said.
“We have to follow the lead of the government and health professionals to keep our people safe. Surely the economy cannot be more important than human beings.”
In his post, Bowyer questioned why Singapore was unable to enter phase three of its reopening earlier instead of December 28, given that “there have been virtually no new cases in the community for months.”
He also criticized the government for “pushing experimental vaccines with known side effects”, claiming that the threat from Covid-19 is “practically nil” and that the disease is unlikely to require “serious treatment.”
Instead, Bowyer said, authorities should promote “healthy lifestyles, exercise in the sun, nutrition and other natural activities that boost the immune system” to protect people from Covid-19 and future viruses.
In response, Ms Manickam said: “I am alarmed by your recent posts on the subject because I supported myself as a candidate in Nee Soon GRC … I think the Party has to distance itself from its dangerous views.”
Bowyer has also made two other posts on Facebook this week, questioning the need to wear masks as a form of protection against Covid-19, as well as the reliability of the Covid-19 polymerase chain reaction test, which is used to detect an infection. .
Last November, Singapore’s fake news law was used for the first time and Bowyer was asked to correct the false statements he made about investments from GIC, Temasek and other government-linked companies.
He was issued a correction instruction under the Protection Against Falsehoods and Online Manipulation Act (Pofma) for insinuating that the government controls the business decisions of Temasek and GIC.
In July, the PSP team led by Damien Tay that opposed Nee Soon won 38.1 percent of the vote, losing to the People’s Action Party team led by the Minister of Law and Home Affairs K. Shanmugam.
Other members of Nee Soon’s PSP team were Mr. Taufik Supan and party treasurer Sri Nallakaruppan.
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