But Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, may still find its way into a vaccinated person.To fully protect the population, herd immunity is needed, experts said.
“Keep in mind that migrant workers in Singapore already have herd immunity because more than 70 per cent were infected.” Globally, the latest vaccination rate is 6.67 million doses per day, on average, according to Bloomberg data. More vaccines, but more variants too Singapore has approved the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, and taken delivery of the CoronaVac vaccine by China’s Sinovac, though it has yet to approve Sinovac’s.
At present, all the data suggests that the vaccine’s effectiveness meets the minimum requirement for population roll-out, Prof Teo noted. This is also dependent on whether governments are able to establish a platform to mutually access, recognize and accredit Covid-19 vaccination records. “However, there will still be the challenge of addressing the inequity faced by people who are not vaccinated, either because of medical reasons or out of personal choice, who may now be penalized and barred from a range of activities because of their vaccination status.”