Once again, it falls on a private citizen like myself to highlight the abject failure of the Pigs Are Pigs in the Covid vaccination program or lack thereof. Of course, I don't expect the prostitute press controlled by the Pigs Are Pigs to do an In depth article on this, nor the fake oppo Wayang Party aka Workers Party (who have not even whimpered about this). But not even one oppo party brought this up at all? Really.
According to the local press reports which proudly proclaimed, as of Jan 29th, 113,0000 people have been vaccinated with their first shot of the anti Covid vaccine. Based on a total population of approximately 6 million in S'pore, that's less then 2% of the total population! Its pathetic. Even in the US, which has one of the most discombobulated vaccination programs, 30 million does have been administered, which is just under 10% of their population. In Israel, where the population is around 9 million, about 5.5 million doses have been administered!! That's over 60% of their population. And Israel does not even manufacture one single shot of the vaccine. How did they do it? "Rather, their success partly came from striking a deal with Pfizer to be first in line for the vaccine in exchange for supplying critical data on the shot’s effectiveness. “We convinced them that if they give their vaccine to us first, we will know exactly how to administer it in the shortest time possible - and this is precisely what happened,” Israeli Health Minister Yuli Edelstein said"
Well, Pigs Are Pigs porlumpars will argue, that's Israel, and we are Singapore. We are different. Yes, we are different, because unlike Israel, we claim to be a hub for biomedical research and manufacturing. Every significant pharmaceutical company in the world has a presence here, including Pfizer. Per capita and per sq km, we have the most biomedical/pharmaceutical/bioresearch companies on earth... by far. These are just some of the companies here.
AbbVie --The company announced it will build its first manufacturing plant since its split from Abbot Laboratories in 2012. It will invest $320 in the Singapore plant which comes online in 2019."
Actavis -- The company announced a new regional office in Singapore that will serve as the headquarters for the company's Asia Pacific and Africa region.
Amgen -- The company inaugurated a new S$200 million biomanufacturing facility in Tuas Biomedical Park, marking the company's first manufacturing site in Asia.
Baxter International Inc. -- The company opened its first advanced recombinant biologic production facility in Singapore, including an investment in a new multi-product recombinant protein manufacturing suite.
Becton, Dickinson and Company (BD) -- The medical technology company unveiled a new annex building, which is an extension of its plant in Tuas Biomedical Park. The facility will house various functions across the product development cycle, including research and development, process design and manufacturing.
We have several Biomedical parks and centres including Tuas, Biopolis, A*STAR Biomedical, NUS, NTU BMERC, NUS/John Hopkins, etc. "Singapore has made a huge commitment to develop and advance biomedical R&D. The significant investment began in 2001 and has been steadily increasing since. For the period 2006–2010, the government committed $13.5 billion in Singapore dollars (SGD) to R&D, more than double the spending of the preceding five-year period. Of this, 25.3% was committed to the biomedical sector." "More than 100 global biomedical sciences companies are carrying out a variety of business operations in Singapore, including cutting-edge research and manufacturing. These companies include Abbott, Roche, Merck, Novartis, Pfizer, Schering-Plough, Wyeth, Siemens, and Becton-Dickson", and this segment employs 16,000 people.
SO wait a minute here. The most qualified country on the planet earth to do research into Covid, and produce vaccines for Covid came up with a big fat ZERO? Nada? No vaccine coming from S'pore? Ok, I understand if all these companies keep their best and brightest minds in their home countries to develop the vaccines. And therefore, their branches in S'pore could not come up with anything. But surely, for crying out loud, given our strong connection to all these pharmaceutical companies, why didn't the Pigs Are Pigs leverage this to at least convince one or 2 companies to set up a vaccine manufacturing plant here. At least, we could have been already getting some vaccine on a large scale if they had set up a plant here or use their existing facilities. We could have done the same as Israel did and offer to strike a deal with a company to supply data on the shot's effectiveness. Heck, we even have a captive group of over 300,000 potential subjects locked up in workers dorms, who had Covid running rampant through them. Was there a better group of people anywhere in the world to vaccinate? Was there a better and easier group of people to monitor and get results for?
It seems to me that most S'poreans and all oppos are giving the Pigs Are Pigs a free ride in this fiasco by not questioning the pace of vaccinations, and why despite billions $ spend attracting all these companies, we are at the same level as Indonesia for Covid vaccine development. It's time that stopped.
According to the local press reports which proudly proclaimed, as of Jan 29th, 113,0000 people have been vaccinated with their first shot of the anti Covid vaccine. Based on a total population of approximately 6 million in S'pore, that's less then 2% of the total population! Its pathetic. Even in the US, which has one of the most discombobulated vaccination programs, 30 million does have been administered, which is just under 10% of their population. In Israel, where the population is around 9 million, about 5.5 million doses have been administered!! That's over 60% of their population. And Israel does not even manufacture one single shot of the vaccine. How did they do it? "Rather, their success partly came from striking a deal with Pfizer to be first in line for the vaccine in exchange for supplying critical data on the shot’s effectiveness. “We convinced them that if they give their vaccine to us first, we will know exactly how to administer it in the shortest time possible - and this is precisely what happened,” Israeli Health Minister Yuli Edelstein said"
Well, Pigs Are Pigs porlumpars will argue, that's Israel, and we are Singapore. We are different. Yes, we are different, because unlike Israel, we claim to be a hub for biomedical research and manufacturing. Every significant pharmaceutical company in the world has a presence here, including Pfizer. Per capita and per sq km, we have the most biomedical/pharmaceutical/bioresearch companies on earth... by far. These are just some of the companies here.
AbbVie --The company announced it will build its first manufacturing plant since its split from Abbot Laboratories in 2012. It will invest $320 in the Singapore plant which comes online in 2019."
Actavis -- The company announced a new regional office in Singapore that will serve as the headquarters for the company's Asia Pacific and Africa region.
Amgen -- The company inaugurated a new S$200 million biomanufacturing facility in Tuas Biomedical Park, marking the company's first manufacturing site in Asia.
Baxter International Inc. -- The company opened its first advanced recombinant biologic production facility in Singapore, including an investment in a new multi-product recombinant protein manufacturing suite.
Becton, Dickinson and Company (BD) -- The medical technology company unveiled a new annex building, which is an extension of its plant in Tuas Biomedical Park. The facility will house various functions across the product development cycle, including research and development, process design and manufacturing.
We have several Biomedical parks and centres including Tuas, Biopolis, A*STAR Biomedical, NUS, NTU BMERC, NUS/John Hopkins, etc. "Singapore has made a huge commitment to develop and advance biomedical R&D. The significant investment began in 2001 and has been steadily increasing since. For the period 2006–2010, the government committed $13.5 billion in Singapore dollars (SGD) to R&D, more than double the spending of the preceding five-year period. Of this, 25.3% was committed to the biomedical sector." "More than 100 global biomedical sciences companies are carrying out a variety of business operations in Singapore, including cutting-edge research and manufacturing. These companies include Abbott, Roche, Merck, Novartis, Pfizer, Schering-Plough, Wyeth, Siemens, and Becton-Dickson", and this segment employs 16,000 people.
SO wait a minute here. The most qualified country on the planet earth to do research into Covid, and produce vaccines for Covid came up with a big fat ZERO? Nada? No vaccine coming from S'pore? Ok, I understand if all these companies keep their best and brightest minds in their home countries to develop the vaccines. And therefore, their branches in S'pore could not come up with anything. But surely, for crying out loud, given our strong connection to all these pharmaceutical companies, why didn't the Pigs Are Pigs leverage this to at least convince one or 2 companies to set up a vaccine manufacturing plant here. At least, we could have been already getting some vaccine on a large scale if they had set up a plant here or use their existing facilities. We could have done the same as Israel did and offer to strike a deal with a company to supply data on the shot's effectiveness. Heck, we even have a captive group of over 300,000 potential subjects locked up in workers dorms, who had Covid running rampant through them. Was there a better group of people anywhere in the world to vaccinate? Was there a better and easier group of people to monitor and get results for?
It seems to me that most S'poreans and all oppos are giving the Pigs Are Pigs a free ride in this fiasco by not questioning the pace of vaccinations, and why despite billions $ spend attracting all these companies, we are at the same level as Indonesia for Covid vaccine development. It's time that stopped.
