by Foong Swee Fong

The Straits Times has finally published what skeptics of the Covid-19 vaccine have long suspected: that immunity acquired from a natural infection is stronger than immunity acquired from the vaccine.

The article quotes The Lancet, a prestigious medical journal, which reports that researchers have found that immunity acquired after a Covid-19 infection is “at least more as durable, if not more so than 2 doses of Pfizer’s or Moderna’s vaccine.” Furthermore, “ten months after a natural infection, people still had an 88% lower risk of reinfection, hospitalization, and death.”

This then begs the question of whether it would have been better not to vaccinate healthy people, particularly the young, given the low probability of severe illness or death after an initial infection. Moreover, it became clear shortly after the vaccines were rolled out that they were not effective in preventing infection. In 2021, a group of doctors wrote to the government to reconsider its decision to vaccinate teenagers and children, but they were ignored.

While it is understandable that the government needs to inspire confidence in a pandemic, and that another U-turn would have been disastrous, their insistence, even to the extent of implementing “no jab, no job,” did not come without a cost.

The ST reported recently that the “likely cause” of the death of a 28-year-old Bangladeshi worker 21 days after taking the first dose of the Moderna vaccine was the vaccine itself, and that the government has agreed to pay his family the highest tier compensation of $225,000.

As of the end of 2022, 413 people, not including the Bangladeshi worker, have been officially recognized as having been injured, maimed or killed by the vaccine, with the government having paid out $1.8m.

While there may be more such cases, proving a conclusive link to the vaccine can be difficult, and as a result, not all are eligible for compensation.

I am sure there are more, but have difficulty proving a conclusive link to the vaccine and, therefore not eligible for compensation. A case in point is the former nurse who was hospitalised for 151 days after receiving her second jab, and was diagnosed with an involuntary movement disorder, which left her wheelchair-bound and requiring constant intubation with an oxygen tank.

While the pandemic may be over for some, it is not over for those who have been negatively affected by the vaccine. Some have lost their lives, ironically, not due to the virus, but due to the vaccine.

(Note: The ST headline “Covid-19 immunity from infection is similar to jabs” is inaccurate and misleading. It should read “at least as durable, if not more, than the jabs”.)

This piece was first published on Foong Swee Fong’s Facebook page and reproduced with permission

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