So, Reuters broke this story recently: “Pentagon ran secret anti-vax campaign to undermine China during pandemic.”

This couldn’t have come out a worst time. Whatever credibility the US government has, after its disastrous decisions and actions with Gaza, is lowered even further. If it’s even possible.

Now, lawmakers in the Philippines are demanding for an investigation into these allegations and are saying that these allegations are “likely true”.

And of course, China is mad about it.

Pentagon is not helping matters by not denying that this clandestine operation happened.

Apparently, it’s a bid to “counter ‘malign influence campaigns’ run by Beijing.”

Well, okay, so what if a couple of Filipinos died because of this right? Are Filipino lives just consumables, ask this Global Times editorial?

Though, I have to say it’d be much worse if Pentagon did deny it. Best to preserve whatever tiny bits of PR you have left.

Lastly, a journalist reacts to the news, calling it “shameful”: A shameful American pandemic propaganda program.

Glenn Greenwald, one of the better US journalists out there who dare to bash both the “left” and “right” of politics, also covered this issue:

My thoughts

First, I was so surprised that it was Reuters that broke the story. If anything, I expected a “China cooked up the virus in a lab” story.

During the pandemic, Malaysia was fighting so hard to get vaccines. There was a lot of hoarding of vaccines in Western nations so we could only get scraps. If not for the generosity of AstraZeneca and China who donated vaccines to us, where would we be today?

So, the news about this deliberate misinformation made my jaw drop. What a morally bankrupt, evil thing to do!

But then again, these days, the US actions on the world stage has just dropped down to such a low that I’m no longer surprised they would do such a thing.

What’s interesting is even in Malaysia we had “news” that Sinovac doesn’t work. There was a lot of sniffing about how AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines were better, and Sinovac shots are just inferior.

However, instead of avoiding it, many Malaysians accepted it as less effective and took the vaccine with the belief that “it’s better than nothing”. We are very practical folks after all.

Older Chinese folks preferred Sinovac because they believe it’ll help them visit China easier 😆. I know some folks who are more suspicious of the mRNA vaccines chose Sinovac as it uses a more “traditional” technology.

I have journal entries about my experience during the COVID-19 pandemic (I’m still rebuidling it slowly from my Twitter archives):

• Lockdown diaries, March 2020
• Lockdown diaries, April 2020
• A pandemic, a lockdown and how nothing will ever be the same
• Is minimalism practical in the age of COVID-19?
• No, you don’t have to be productive during a global pandemic
• Saving and investing in pre-apocalyptic times