STATEMENT ON PEOPLE’S POWER PARTY’S 17 JUNE POST ON COVID-19 VACCINATION

The Ministry of Health (MOH) is aware of a post by the People’s Power Party (PPP) on 17 June 2024 to reiterate the call for suspension of COVID-19 vaccination. 

The post also referenced a recent publication “Excess mortality across countries in the Western World since the Covid-19 pandemic: Our World in Data estimates of January 2020 to December 2022” in BMJ Public Health which suggested that COVID-19 vaccination might be one of the main factors that results in high excess mortality.

This reference is misleading. The BMJ Public Health had in fact issued a public statement on 7 June 2024, stating that the abovementioned publication “does not establish any direct causal link between COVID-19 vaccination and mortality”. 

On 11 June 2024, the Princess Máxima Centre in the Netherlands, which is affiliated with three of the four authors of the paper, also issued a statement to state that it would further investigate the scientific quality of the study. An expression of concern was subsequently placed on the paper on 14 June 2024, and the BMJ integrity and editorial teams are currently investigating issues raised regarding the quality and messaging of this paper. 

That said, we note that, as compared to their 29 May 2024 post which claimed that COVID-19 vaccines caused high incidence of severe side effects, and attempted to draw associations between high vaccination rates and excess deaths, the PPP has now adopted a more reflective tone and recognised the inconclusive nature of the publications it cites.

As mentioned in MOH’s last clarification, like any other medication and vaccine, there are side effects to COVID-19 vaccination. It is a balance between benefit and risk, and scientific evidence overwhelmingly shows that vaccination protects the elderly and medically vulnerable from severe disease and death from COVID-19 infection, which far outweigh any risk of severe side effects. There is in fact a fairly high risk of COVID-19 infection, causing after effects such as myocarditis and pericarditis. As COVID-19 waves will continue to occur, we recommend that the elderly and medically vulnerable stay updated with their COVID-19 vaccination.