Mayor says Baguio data prove vaccines work
Mayor Benjamin Magalong said coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccines delivered on their promised benefits as proven by the city’s data.
“We can see the result. Most of those who died and most of the critical and severe cases are actually unvaccinated and based on empirical data, we can say that vaccines really work,” the mayor said.
The mayor said that while most of the COVID-19 cases in the current wave believed to be caused by the omicron variant were vaccinated, they were either asymptomatic or having mild symptoms.
In fact, a mathematical analysis of the city’s COVID-19 data done by the University of the Philippines College of Mathematics and Computer Science (UP-CMCS) revealed that fully vaccinated individuals in the city have 252 times less chances of dying compared to the unvaccinated.
It further showed that the odds of dying among the unvaccinated is 109 times more than the vaccinated.
“This is why we will continue convincing people to get vaccinated. The best way to avoid hospitalization and death is to get that jab,” the mayor said.
Citing its own data, the Department of Health said vaccinated persons have 10-20 times less risk of dying and 2-5 times less risk of hospitalization while the World Health Organization said unvaccinated people have at least 10 times higher risk of death from COVID19 than someone who has been vaccinated.
The World Health Organization said breakthrough infections and deaths happen because of factors like age and comorbidities that inhibit development of active immunity of the person against the virus.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that while vaccines remain very effective at preventing death and severe COVID-19 disease, they do not fully prevent transmission.
From the start, no vaccine had claimed 100 percent protection against getting infected and against transmitting the virus. “Vaccines did not promise to make us COVID-free, only to help prevent severe infections, hospitalizations and deaths. And they delivered on this promise,” Panes said. – Aileen P. Refuerzo
