Best Posts in Thread: Situation in the Philippines and in our province

Any vaccine is not 100% guaranteed to prevent a person becoming ill from some sort of virus, with sympathy for those who have losted love ones
As for my feeling safer, having had my two injections for the Covid, I am very aware that I might still get the virus.
January 2020 when news was breaking of this Pandemic and the UK Government kindly placed the very first suspected cases coming back from abroad in my local hospital, my wife and I didnt feel very safe, the country was put on emergency alerts told not go out etc etc. But every day I took my wife to work at the hospital not knowing if she would fall victim to the disease while tending to patients and also infecting me.
We broke contact with my children and relatives and friends for weeks/ months to prevent the risk if we caught the virus from spreading.
As for this atitude of "Freedom to choose" movement going round, well you know what you can do with it. Rant over.

 

I know you are a smart guy but you have no evidence that the very short-term gain of vaccination (a gain needing boosting after only 6 months) is greater than any long-term effects. We have to hope there are no serious long-term effects but we currently have no evidence.

Anti-vaxxers are usually regarded as those who refuse all vaccines - in the case of Covid there are many people who have had a host of vaccines in their lifetime but are refusing Covid due to the speed with which vaccines were produced and the absence of long term evidence. They should be termed anti-Covid-vaxxers or perhaps 'cautious' and only in years to come will we know if they made the right or wrong choice.

 

.[/QUOTE] only in years to come will we know if they made the right or wrong choice.[/QUOTE]

It seems to be evident that vaccines enable a higher rate of survival so "right choice"

 

I do not think test results are an accurate indicator of the problem. They can be manipulated simply by doing more testing. A better indicator (albeit delayed) is the hospital isolation bed capacity.

We recently saw an example of this here in Dumaguete. The national government considered Manila a higher priority for vaccination than the provinces. Dumaguete was not on the priority list for vaccinations and the covid infection rate was increasing. The local DOH temporarily brought in additional testing resources from Cebu. An extreme increase in testing showed that the increasing infection rate in Dumaguete was the worst in the nation. Viola! Dumaguete was added to the high priority list for vaccinations. This increased priority list was called NCR +10. This is the spike and subsequent decrease in infections shown on the graph that you referenced.

It is possible we witnessed true political mastery.

10 cities outside 'NCR Plus' added to vaccine priority list
https://www.rappler.com/nation/cities-outside-ncr-plus-added-covid-19-vaccine-priority-list

https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1144810

The hospital capacity is a better indicator of how well the community is managing the problem. There is a balance between the economy and the overwhelming of medical resources. Now that we have a vaccine, the balance can start tilting more towards the economy. The at-risk population has had their chance to be vaccinated. If they have decided to not get vaccinated then the rest of the working population should not have to suffer in order to protect them. Open up the economy to the extent that the medical resources can manage and let the anti-vaxers get sick and suffer the consequences.

We can expect an upswing as a result of opening the economy and the variants. The current hospital occupancy is low.

 

What you say is somewhat true (no evidence about long term effects of vaccination); I say somewhat because the large scale phase 3 testing of vaccines happened already about a year ago; one would expect there to be at least some measure of delayed effect on people's health among the test subjects if there would be a serious adverse long term effect.

What we do know is that there is a serious risk of long covid after catching the illness.
So I still say I'll live with the unlikely long term effect of vaccination rather than risk long covid.

Forgive my scepticism regarding an attempt to distinguish between anti-vaxxers in general and covid anti-vaxxers.
I'm thinking there's a very very large overlap there, and, to me in both cases it's people who don't trust science.

 

It would appear from the graph below that the situation in the Philippines (regarding reported cases on a per capita basis) is the second worst in the region, after Malaysia.
Within the Philippines the situation differs a lot when comparing on the provinces level. Whereas infections have been going from bad to worse in the NCR, the situation in Negros Oriental is a lot different (see graph below).
The most recent numbers seem to point to the start of a new upswing though. Let's hope that impression is wrong.

 

My wife's family were the same but my wife decided to have the vaccine. Now the whole family are following. Good on 'er I say!

 

Maybe my wife is typical of locals when it comes to getting vaxed (maybe not). She would need to see a family member or close friend get the vaccine and see if they are okay after, then maybe get it. Just doesn’t trust it. I wish she would take it but her choice. All her extended family are same.