Those old enough to remember the 1990s should also remember how Thailand talked enthusiastically about competing with Singapore to become the leading nation in ASEAN.
For the past two decades, however, the silence on this topic is deafening.
If there\u2019s any silver lining in the COVID-19 Pandemic, it is that AstraZeneca will be produced in Thailand. Within the year 2021, the kingdom will be ASEAN\u2019s center for the COVID-19 vaccine. At least, that\u2019s the plan.
But by early 2023, Singapore will become the center for the Pfizer vaccine and produce \u201cseveral hundreds of millions\u201d of mRNA-based vaccine doses a year. The German drug company BioNTech has struck the deal for a new manufacturing facility in Singapore.
As such, within less than two years, Thailand\u2019s AstraZeneca will have a competitor.
Which is the better vaccine?
According to real-world data released by South Korean authorities, a single dose of AstraZeneca has 86% efficacy, while a single dose of Pfizer has 89.7% efficacy.
Both numbers will improve through further research and development. It would be unfair to assume the two vaccines would not be on par by this time next year.
Nonetheless, consumer confidence remains key. It is no secret that those Thais who can afford it are flying abroad to receive Pfizer vaccination. While many in the kingdom are holding out for Pfizer or AstraZeneca, as opposed to rushing to receive Sinovac.
At the end of the day, the citizens of ASEAN will have two choices for locally made vaccines: Thailand\u2019s AstraZeneca or Singapore\u2019s Pfizer.
Consumer confidence over \u201cMade in Thailand\u201d versus \u201cMade in Singapore\u201d aside, the competitive advantage will be pricing, manufacturer\u2019s capacity and effectiveness, and government-to-government negotiations.
In the medium to long term, the question becomes which nation will be, regardless of the brand, ASEAN\u2019s real center for COVID-19 vaccine:
General Prayut Chan-o-cha\u2019s Thailand or Lee Hsien Loong\u2019s Singapore?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Those old enough to remember the 1990s should also remember how Thailand talked enthusiastically about competing with Singapore to become the leading nation in ASEAN. For the past two decades, however, the silence on this topic is deafening. If there\u2019s any silver lining in the COVID-19 Pandemic, it is that AstraZeneca will be produced in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":450,"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":[151,27,115,40,152,12,14,150,45,13],"class_list":["post-449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-thisurpt","tag-asean","tag-covid","tag-covid-thailand","tag-covid-19","tag-singapore","tag-thailand","tag-thisrupt","tag-uncle-lee","tag-uncle-tu","tag-whatshappeninginthailand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisrupt.co\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449","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=449"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thisrupt.co\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":451,"href":"https:\/\/thisrupt.co\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449\/revisions\/451"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisrupt.co\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisrupt.co\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisrupt.co\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisrupt.co\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}