From
, we see that in the latest large cluster at Bukit Merah View,
31 of the 85 infected (or 36%) were fully vaccinated. The first case in the cluster was a fully vaccinated individual who
tested positive on June 10th after experiencing COVID symptoms, which means the actual infection happened at least several days before that.
Singapore fully vaccinated
32% of its population by June 7th,
34% by June 14th, and
35% by June 21st. So, the fully vaccinated actually make up a slightly higher fraction of the latest Bukit Merah View cluster than in the general Singapore population!
Of course, the population exposed to the Bukit Merah View market may have vaccination rates that differ from the general Singapore population, e.g., if mostly older people are exposed and older people tend to have higher vaccination rates. However, viewing the cluster by age, we see that the median age in the cluster is somewhere between 40 and 50, at most only a little higher than Singapore's overall median age of 42 years, so vaccination rates of the population exposed by the Bukit Merah View cluster is unlikely to differ dramatically from that of Singapore overall.
Given the available data about the Bukit Merah View cluster, it is highly unlikely that Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have anywhere close to the ~95% efficacy against infections that Western media likes to claim while putting down the "low" efficacy of Chinese vaccines. The high ~95% efficacy of the mRNA vaccines is for prevention of moderate and severe disease, against which the Chinese vaccines also have similar efficacies. Before the Singapore results, we didn't have any data on how well the mRNA vaccines work in preventing asymptomatic and mild infections as none of the other countries using the mRNA vaccines had vigorous contact tracing and testing programs that tried to catch all infections. Now with the Singapore data, as well as the Mongolian data where we have Pfizer and Chinese vaccines being used in the same setting, we have some pretty strong evidence that the mRNA vaccines are not significantly more effective than the inactivated Chinese vaccines despite the much higher risk of side effects with the mRNA vaccines.
