Still a pipe dream

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‘Herd immunity — at least from my understanding — requires having all 70 million vaccinated and immune from COVID-19 at the same time, thus denying the virus a chance to replicate and mutate.’

FOR the past few days, we have been vaccinating more Filipinos than ever before, with May 22 numbers alone at 162, 513. Over three million Filipinos have received one dose of the vaccine while close to one million are fully vaccinated (double doses). Not surprisingly, many have been trumpeting this accomplishment on social media, my favorite source on Twitter being Dr. Ted Herbosa, former executive vice president of the University of the Philippines and someone who is almost always positive about how the national government is accomplishing its work.

As I have said time and again, I, however, take a more conservative attitude towards our anti-COVID campaign, and by conservative I mean taking the view that we are still not doing enough and therefore cannot lull ourselves into a false sense of accomplishment with backslapping and high fives. And here’s why.

As vaccine trackers point out, the 949,939 Filipinos who are fully vaccinated comprise just 0.86% of our total population of 110 million. I add that if herd immunity among 70 million is the target, this is 1.35% of the target population.

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Furthermore, the vaccine trackers point out that at the rate we are going with 162,513 vaccinated per day, we will achieve herd immunity in 2.3 years, or by September 2023.

In fact, this is wrong; this is not herd immunity. If we can only vaccinate 70 million by September 2023 then we would not have achieved herd immunity at all. Herd immunity — at least from my understanding — requires having all 70 million vaccinated and immune from COVID-19 at the same time, thus denying the virus a chance to replicate and mutate.

You see, we are told that the vaccine has a 6-month or maybe 1-year effectivity. Let’s put it at one year. This means from the time the first Filipino was fully vaccinated you have 12 months, say 11 to be conservative, to get the 70th million also vaccinated. Not 13 months.

Definitely not 24 months.

Now imagine if the vaccine is only good for six months?

Last March, retired Gen. Carlito Galvez, touted as the country’s vaccine czar, announced that we were targeting a vaccination rate of 500,000 to 1 million per week for the months of April and May. April came and went and we were, I believe, at about 300,000 a week.

Here we are in the last week of May and only now are we hitting numbers above the 500,000 weekly minimum target. But think about this:

There are seven months left to Christmas — the happy Christmas that the vaccine czar has repeatedly said will be ours to enjoy — and if we are to achieve herd immunity by vaccinating 70 million by then that means, at a constant pace, we need to vaccinate 10 million Filipinos per month.

Ten million Filipinos to be vaccinated divided by four weeks is 2.5 million Filipinos vaccinated per week. Now 2.5 million Filipinos vaccinated per week divided by seven days in a week means 625,000 vaccinations per day. That’s 625,000 vs. today’s 162,513.

Let’s stop backslapping, shall we? It’s totally premature, even dangerous.

In the meantime, debate rages on about transparency with regard to the vaccine brand being shot up peoples’ arms. I have not been vaccinated yet (I need to wait till July due to my convalescent plasma infusion last April) and I wouldn’t mind being vaccinated with any brand that is available, but I would like to know what it is they will be shooting into my arm. It’s just like every time nurses would come into my room at St. Luke’s, bearing syringes, I would make it a point to ask them what I was going to get (and then would Google the information I got!) to understand even as a layman what I was getting into my system. I see no difference when it comes to the vaccines, although someone might say “but you’re getting this free.” Which is not the case because it’s public funds that are paying for the shots, yes?

This whole vaccine anonymity issue is not helped any by the fact that the President of the Philippines dropped the ball on this one. Unlike Indonesian President Widodo, or General Galvez, or even PGH Dir. Dr. Gap Legaspi who all had themselves shot up with Sinovac, our beloved President refused, waited for Sinopharm (apparently he was not vaccinated last October together with the PSG and some special Filipinos) and now lashes out at Pinoys who are “brand conscious.” Shouldn’t we be? Shouldn’t it matter that Sinopharm has emergency use authorization from the WHO while Sinovac doesn’t? And yet it is the latter that we are ordering in the millions of doses from China, and rolling out to millions and millions of Filipinos who are not given any choice.

Imagine how things would have been different if the vastly popular President, beloved by 90% of the population, had himself publicly injected with Sinovac and then called on all those who believed and trusted in him to do the same?

Just to be clear: me, I’m fine with Sinovac not because I trust our beloved President but because I put my faith in our FDA.

And this is why public opinion polling show widespread hesitancy in the population when it comes to getting vaccinated. Some reports put it in the high 60s; in our own office the hesitation or outright refusal to be vaccinated hovers between 20-30%. That’s fine; it is to be expected; and it is still within the target 70% of the population that has to be vaccinated for herd immunity.

But, I must repeat, all within a certain period of time so that the immunity period of the 70% of the population overlaps. Not one that is stretched over three years, rendering the achievement of “herd immunity” only wishful thinking, good only on power point. Still a pipe dream.

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