The incredibly rapid uptake of vaccines among young Singaporean adults offers a natural experiment in the effect of mRNA shots on fertility. (Roughly 98 percent of all the jabs Singapore gave were mRNA from Pfizer or Moderna. Chinese vaccines used traditional inactivated virus technology made up the rest.)
You will not be surprised at this point to learn that Singapore publishes comprehensive figures on births and deaths every quarter.
Like other East Asian countries, Singapore is suffering severe baby bust. The average woman in Singapore has fewer than 1.2 children, barely half the birth rate needed to avert a long-term decline in population.
As low as the birth rate was, though, it had remained stable for a decade. Even Covid did not meaningfully change the number of births - 39,259 in 2019, 38,590 in 2020, and 38,672 in 2021.
In the first two months of 2022, Singapore received welcome news. Births actually rose about 7.5 percent.
Then came March. Again, Singapore began mass mRNA vaccinations of women (and men) of childbearing age in June 2021; March 2022 is exactly nine months later.
In March, the increase in births abruptly reversed. Between March and June 2022 - the most recent month for which figures are available - Singapore has recorded about 1,000 fewer live births compared to 2021, a decline of 8.5 percent. The drop has been consistent each month.
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