Reassured after church webinar

Last month, Madam Mah Koon Sin, 66, got her first Covid-19 jab. She will receive her second shot soon.

But the retired bank employee was not always convinced she should get the vaccine.

When Singapore began ramping up vaccination efforts earlier this year, she had some doubts.

"I wasn't sure if it was safe. Normally, vaccines take years to be developed, but this was very fast," Madam Mah said.

But in late January, Madam Mah, a member of Fairfield Methodist Church, attended a webinar conducted by Professor Ooi Eng Eong of Duke-NUS Medical School which was organised by the Methodist Church of Singapore's Trinity Annual Conference (Trac) Seniors Ministry. Trac is a branch of the Methodist Church comprising 21 churches.

At the webinar, Prof Ooi, who attends Wesley Methodist Church, explained that the long timeline required for the development of other vaccines does not arise from safety reasons, but is due to cost considerations.

Typically, vaccine development comprises several key steps, including pre-clinical studies and clinical trials. The steps require significant investment, and there is a possibility that they could fail, and the sunk costs are wasted. This is why they are usually performed sequentially.

However, given the urgency of the Covid-19 crisis, companies were willing and able to work on their vaccines in an overlapping, parallel fashion, thus enabling the rapid development of the vaccines, Prof Ooi explained in the webinar.

Madam Mah said what she learnt from the webinar convinced her that it was safe to get vaccinated.

"I felt assured that the vaccine was not developed in a haphazard manner," she said.

"I think the webinar was very helpful, and I have forwarded the video to my church friends who have been asking me questions about the jab."