While medical professionals and the public are urging the govt to provide mRNA vaccines as the main choice of inoculation to better fight the Covid-19 surge, there are also crazy claims about mRNA vaccines that express doubts over it. These claims are so cray-cray that I've decided to retell them for your entertainment.
mRNA is a code word for death (in Thai)
Chai Seeho's recent Facebook post went viral last week and here's why. He started his post by complaining about choosey people who demanded more vaccine variety. He said he didn't know whether the mRNA vaccines were good or not but, based on his knowledge of English, he translates it as the following:
M's counterpart in Thai language is ม.
R is ร.
N is ณ.
A can be vowel -ะ, -า or เ-
Therefore, mRNA that you so desire to have is decoded in Thai to spell มรณะ (death in Thai)...
Be my guest if you want to be jabbed (with mRNA)
P.S. I got this from someone else who had decoded it and passed it on.
With due respect to Khun Chai, I honestly hope he was joking even though his tone is rather serious. To think that a type of vaccine would be created to target a specific country is very conspiracy-theory, self-centred, self-important and narcissistic, IMO. Like, "Oh, we're such a special country that a foreign power wants to target us in some way." Besides, mRNA stands for Messenger RNA (ribonucleic acid) and, at the risk of sounding like a language nerd, replacing one alphabet of one language with a corresponding alphabet of another is an act of transliteration and it isn't about the transfer of meaning but it helps you pronounce foreign words.
mRNA is a way for North America to get rich
The Thai Move Institute, an ultra-conservative group, offered their interpretation of mRNA as "Money Return to North America" without further explanation. I can only surmise that the institute implies that buying more mRNA vaccines would enrich North America and it's something the institute has an issue with.
Well, with the same line of thinking, I can argue that "money return to China" because the govt has ordered so many Sinovac vaccines even though there're more proven brands out there. Just last week, the Cabinet decided to buy another 10.9 million doses of Sinovac at the price of 6 billion baht only for the health authorities to say, on Monday, that two doses of Sinovac are no longer the go-to way to fight Covid-19 and endorsed cross-brand vaccination instead. It doesn't sound like you're confident about the vaccine that you've ordered so many of.
Also, those who already received two doses of Sinovac may feel like the trouble they went through to get jabs twice was all for nothing.
Shinawatra is behind Sinovac fo sho
Thaksin Shinawatra is behind Sinovac, according to another online theory. You see, Si=Shi, No=na and Vac=Watra. Totally make sense since Thaksin has bought everyone and everything to be on his side. This claim is obviously a cheeky response to the first two claims to irk those who're pro Sinovac-pro government.