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    The McMaster Department of Philosophy has now put together the following notice commemorating Barry: Barry Allen: A Philosophical Life Barry…

Infection and vaccination in Singapore

Brian Leiter

Bear in mind that Singapore has fairly high vaccination rates (55% are full vaccinated, 75% have had at least one shot).  From the article:

Vaccinated individuals [BL:  not all fully vaccinated] accounted for three-quarters of Singapore's COVID-19 infections in the last four weeks, but they were not falling seriously ill, government data showed, as a rapid ramp-up in inoculations leaves fewer people unvaccinated.

While the data shows that vaccines are highly effective in preventing severe cases, it also underscores the risk that even those inoculated could be contagious, so that inoculation alone may not suffice to halt transmission.

Of Singapore's 1,096 locally transmitted infections in the last 28 days, 484, or about 44%, were in fully vaccinated people, while 30% were partially vaccinated and just over 25% were unvaccinated, Thursday's data showed.

While seven cases of serious illness required oxygen, and another was in critical condition in intensive care, none of the eight had been fully vaccinated, the health ministry said.

The article does not break down, however, which vaccines people received.  The RNA-based vaccines (Pfizer and Moderna), which are the most effective, are in wide use, but some people in Singapore have also received other vaccines (like Sinovac) whose effectiveness has been somewhat lower all along.

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6 responses to “Infection and vaccination in Singapore”

  1. s. wallerstein

    In Chile most everyone has been vaccinated with Sinovac, although some have received Pfizer (you can't choose).

    From what I've read Sinovac is fairly effective in preventing severe cases of and death from Covid, but it does not halt transmission. I personally know one person who was vaccinated with Sinovac, yet ended up hospitalized for several weeks, although not in the UCI.

    With the coming of the Delta variant they're planning to give us a third dose of Sinovac, maybe in September.

    I shouldn't say anything positive about rightwing billionaire president Sebastian Piñera, but like the able stock market speculator that he is, he diversified his bets on the vaccines, bought Pfizer (sensing that they would not be able to meet global demand for their product) and bought lots of Sinovac, knowing that the Chinese will produce in mass whatever they can sell, without any regard for labor conditions or the environment, neither of which matters to Piñera either.

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  2. s. wallerstein

    My last paragraph only makes sense if I point out that Chile is 13th in the world in percentage of population now vaccinated against Covid.

    I might add that the fact that Chile is using Sinovac and now negotiating for a Sinovac plant to be opened in Chile is indicative of how China is winning the struggle for political and economy hegemony against the U.S. in Chile and other South American societies. The Chinese are also buying up the entire electric power system in Chile.

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  3. M. Smith

    Almost no vaccines provide sterilizing immunity. The sooner that becomes popular knowledge the better.

    Reply
  4. Crescente Molina

    Also after a rise in the fall infections are now at their lowest rate since the summer (in Chile), and they’re still the middle of the winter. The Sinovac vaccine seems to be working well (contra this:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/22/business/economy/china-vaccines-covid-outbreak.html )

    Reply
  5. s. wallerstein

    Crescent Molina,

    Thanks. Unfortunately, the NYT informs me that I have reached my limit of free articles. Not a very generous limit by the way since I never read it except when someone links to it. During the 2016 U.S. election I clicked on the NYT website one day and I saw so many articles on the danger of Russia that I imagined I had time traveled back to 1958. After that I gave up reading it regularly.

    Professor Leiter, no need to publish this comment if you find it irrelevant.

    Reply
  6. Lemuel

    As a reader from Singapore, I thought I’ll comment that Singapore’s data strictly classifies “fully vaccinated” individuals as those who have had more than 14 days after receiving two doses of either the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine (completing the vaccination regiment is defined as receiving only either the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines by the Singapore government). (Source: Singapore’s health ministry: https://www.moh.gov.sg/covid-19).

    Singapore omits recipients of the Sinovac vaccine from the government’s vaccination count (source: https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/singapore-not-counting-sinovac-shots-covid-19-vaccination-tally-2021-07-07/).

    So if the claim that “vaccinated individuals accounted for three-quarters of Singapore's COVID-19 infections” is indeed based on Singapore government data, we can expect it to mean that those fully vaccinated with mRNA vaccines are in fact susceptible to the delta variant. However, the majority of such infections only displayed mild symptoms or are simply asymptomatic.

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