11.6 million-plus doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered, or around 4.4 percent of the population:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
6.4 million Sinovac.
4.7 million AstraZeneca.
160,000 Sinopharm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A vaccine civil war ensued over the past few months: Sinovac versus mRNA (specifically Pfizer and Moderna).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thais pushing for mRNA are called nation-hating Three-hooves. Thais who champion Sinovac do so for the love of and loyalty to the kingdom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Vaccine nationalism, if you will, even though Sinovac is Chinese.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, Singapore decided not to count people who received Sinovac in the nation\u2019s total vaccinations. On 7 July, Reuters quoted Health Minister Ong Ye Kung:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t really have a medical or scientific basis or have the data now to establish how effective Sinovac is in terms of infection and severe illnesses on Delta [the mutated COVID-19 variant].\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On 6 July, the cabinet approved the purchase of 20 million doses of Pfizer. Thais, who already pre-paid for Moderna at 3,400 baht for two doses, went, \u201cWTF?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The three letters sum up the government\u2019s vaccine management.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Those who can afford to pay couldn\u2019t wait for the turtle-pace free government vaccines, especially since Sinovac is the main one, for the same reason as Singapore. Hence, they purchase Moderna.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But due to the head-spinning bureaucratic hurdles that private hospitals have to backflip over, Moderna won\u2019t make it to the kingdom until October or November. Pfizer is expected to arrive before and for free.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So those pissed-off citizens asked: \u201cWTF?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The problem can be solved through clear planning and communication. If the government would explain who those 20 million Pfizer vaccines are for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
How many for healthcare workers? Medical professionals? Those under the age of 18? Etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
How many will be left after \u201cessential people\u201d and \u201cVVIPs\u201d get their doses, or if none will be left at all?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So we, the people, can know if we are eligible for free Pfizer. If we aren\u2019t eligible, then we may plan to save our own lives accordingly and pursue Moderna.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of course, planning and communication are just too much to ask.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hence, regardless of Three-hooves or Salims, nobody wins in this civil war.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
11.6 million-plus doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered, or around 4.4 percent of the population: 6.4 million Sinovac.4.7 million AstraZeneca.160,000 Sinopharm. A vaccine civil war ensued over the past few months: Sinovac versus mRNA (specifically Pfizer and Moderna). Thais pushing for mRNA are called nation-hating Three-hooves. Thais who champion Sinovac do so for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":330,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[27,40,12,14,13],"class_list":["post-329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-thisurpt","tag-covid","tag-covid-19","tag-thailand","tag-thisrupt","tag-whatshappeninginthailand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisrupt.co\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisrupt.co\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisrupt.co\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisrupt.co\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisrupt.co\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thisrupt.co\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":331,"href":"https:\/\/thisrupt.co\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329\/revisions\/331"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisrupt.co\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisrupt.co\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisrupt.co\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisrupt.co\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}