The concern is warranted, said Dr. Benjamin Co, an infectious disease and clinical pharmacology specialist, but he added that only pointing to the number of health workers who got sick doesn’t reflect the larger success of vaccination.
“Let's put things in perspective – there is no such thing as a vaccine that will prevent 100% of the infections. And I'm not defending Sinovac,” Co said. “But what do you want to do? You want to avoid the severe outcomes. And that's what the vaccines are for…. You want to minimize hospitalization. You want to minimize critical cases. You want to minimize deaths.”
This is where a person’s lifestyle, habits, and preexisting health conditions can come into play. In the case of many health workers who treat COVID-19 patients, fatigue from long working hours coupled with working in high-risk spaces are among factors that can add to the risk of developing infection after exposure to the disease.
“It is unfortunate, but it’s not the vaccine itself,” Sanicas said. “Of course we know that the infection risk is there, but it can become more serious because of all these other factors.”The fact that vaccines are effective against COVID-19 is a huge boost to getting the pandemic under control. It also underscores the urgency of speeding up the pace of vaccinations and ensuring more people are protected as soon as possible.
“When there is a drop in transmission, then theoretically also, you cut the transmissibility of variant strains. The answer actually to addressing the variants of concern is to immunize a greater population, because when more people are immunized and transmission is cut, then there are fewer people that get infected. The problem of the rise of the variants is when outbreaks occur,” Co said.
“Many nations that excelled at protecting their citizens are now facing a triple threat: They controlled COVID-19 so well that they have little natural immunity; they don’t have access to vaccines; and they’re besieged by Delta,” Yong said.
Philippines Latest News, Philippines Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.