On Monday, Singapore’s Health Minister Ong Ye Kung reported that 80,000 seniors aged 60 and above have yet to take their Covid-19 booster shots, urging them to do so as the city-state is expecting a new wave of Omicron infections in the next few months.

The minister added that the first batch of Covid-19 vaccines were engineered more for the “wild-type” virus, and now that the coronavirus has mutated into the Delta and Omicron variants, we need at least three doses of vaccines for “effective” protection—and a fourth jab (or a second booster shot) is recommended for those who’ve so far lived on this planet for at least three scores and two tens (or four scores)—aged 80 and above.

Like thousands of my fellow skeptics, when we read or hear this kind of corona update from a local politician on a Monday, our skepticism index goes up at least twenty points. It sounds more like an indecent number of WHO-approved vaccines are nearing their expiry dates, so they need to come up with some creative eleventh-hour strategies not to waste away those tens of thousands of doses.

These days, even developing countries with low vaccination rates are likely to turn down any donated near-expiry vaccines from those high-GDP hoarders. They’d reply, “Thank you very much for your [“insincere”] donation!” followed by some PC excuses not to offend the donors.

One subtle way to salvage a fraction of these surplus doses is to use some mortality statistics to scare off those who’ve yet to be jabbed or boosted.

For instance, we’re statistically being told that the probability of unvaccinated seniors aged 60 and above ending in the intensive care unit (ICU) or dying from Covid-19 is 1/25, but the figure drops to 1/100 if they’ve been doubly jabbed, or nosedives to a mere 3/1000 if they’ve been boosted.

Minister Ong emphasized that “It makes a difference whether you have taken 0, 1, 2 or 3 shots.” So, the unvaxxed would better pay heed to his life-and-death warning unless they plan to journey to the other side sooner than later.

The sombre message is: Wake up to your minister’s advice if you don’t want to have a minister at your premature wake conducting nightly services to your loved ones and friends and colleagues. The decision is yours to act if you want to prolong your stay on this planet by an extra few years or decades.

Let’s pray that the unvaccinated or unboosted lot would fear Covid-19 more than Covid-🇸🇬, while not letting themselves be paralyzed by either one.

© Yan Kow Cheong, June 20, 2022