Taiwan News published the below news article on the 6th of January, 2021, citing a post on Weibo, a popular social media platform in China, by Dr Tao for the above claim. However, Dr Tao’s post was later removed and few days after the first article, same Taiwan News published another article about the Sinopharm vaccine and its adverse reactions. According to the newspaper report, Tao said that he added that post to the Weibo on a sarcastic note over the vaccine instruction manual and not on a serious note.