Mass vaccination prevents the appearance of new variants and that there are more serious patients in hospitals, specialists agree.
Fanny Cepeda longed for the pandemic to end by this end of the year. Since August, he began to make puppets to sell on 6 de Marzo and Maldonado streets, in the center of Guayaquil. Together with her husband and son, she made 140 dolls, which will be her livelihood.
Fanny is 51 years old and has been a puppet artisan for 20 years. Although she and her family members have already been vaccinated against COVID-19, she still has two concerns: getting infected from exposure to customers and not selling her products.
Mass vaccination would be a solution to Fanny’s concerns. The Ministry of Public Health (MSP) aims to immunize 85% of the vaccinable population until the end of the year, that is, those over five years of age, that is, 77% of the total population. The Ministry estimates that this percentage would lead to a herd immunity. This was stated by the national undersecretary of Health Surveillance, Francisco Pérez, last Thursday in a workshop with journalists.
But nevertheless, three experts disagree with the MSP’s calculations. Daniel Simancas, a research epidemiologist at UTE University, argues that the country will not achieve herd immunity with the percentage of vaccination proposed by the Government, and classifies it as “A more political than technical goal.”
The expert points out that “it is a technical error to assume that with the appearance of new variants that escape vaccines and previous infection, one wants to think that we will be able to control this virus through an estimated percentage of vaccinated”.
Simancas stresses that it is essential to get vaccinated because the low vaccination coverage increases the chances of mutation of the virus.
“In African and Asian countries that have less than 5% vaccination is where it is more likely that the virus tends to replicate so much that it finds, by chance, some combination that makes it more effective in contagion”, he highlights.
To this position is added the infantile infectologist Carola Cedillo. She highlights that “what vaccines have achieved is decrease the rate of hospitalizations, severe cases, ICU (intestinal care units) and mortality as such. However, it has not been completely achieved that vaccines have a control over the transmission of the disease ”.
According to the doctor in microbiology Paúl Cárdenas, when the alpha, beta and gamma variants circulated, it was calculated that 80% of the vaccinated population would be needed to reach herd immunity; but when delta came, the estimated estimate rose to 90% of the vaccinated population.
“With omicron, and with how it escapes the immune system, we can no longer achieve a herd immunity due to the efficacy of the vaccines and the level of contagiousness of the variants,” Cárdenas highlights.
This is also indicated by Simancas, who highlights that, “since we have vaccines that are not 100% effective, the percentage destined to achieve herd immunity must increase ”.
In addition to this, Simancas states that it is pertinent to think that, probably, COVID-19 becomes an endemic disease at some point, that is, it remains in the population and causes sporadic outbreaks in winter and disappears in summer.
If this is the case, adds the expert, “we have to be permanently vaccinated and the vaccination schedule would increase. Just like the flu, the COVID-19 vaccine should be given annually to the entire population or, at least, to the most vulnerable groups ”.
In this, the doctor in Microbiology and Molecular Genetics Josefina Coloma agrees, who participated last Wednesday, along with other experts, in the discussion on complete vaccination organized by the MSP.
“The virus is trying to be more endemic in the community; is trying to become more infectious and less deadly, “he said, adding that” surely this virus is going to stay like a common flu virus, and at this moment it is in that process; but, while the virus has so much transmission, it can have high infection curves and we are going to have another wave with serious hospitalized cases and high mortality ”.
Advancement in vaccination
In the country 12’209,863 people have been vaccinated with the complete scheme, according to the most recent official figures, which are cut to last Thursday. That is 68% of the total population. In the last month, some 50,800 people have reached the full scheme on a daily basis. However, there are still more than 4 million people to be vaccinated until the entire population eligible to receive vaccines is reached.
The provinces with the lowest percentage of vaccination are Morona Santiago (47%) and Pastaza (55%). On the other hand, those that have made the greatest progress are Galapagos (83%), Pichincha (79%) and Bolívar (79%).
In early December, vaccination with a booster dose was started for people over 18 years of age. Until Thursday, the reinforcement had been placed on a total of 777,896 people. So far this month, vaccination with these doses has progressed at a rate of approximately 20,200 people a day.
Dr. Cedillo argues that, although Ecuador has a good percentage of vaccination, “all the people who can be vaccinated should try to achieve the goals of the highest amount of vaccination possible to avoid, again, that there is a massive circulation of the virus and this can make us lose the effectiveness of the vaccines we currently have ”.
This scenario makes Fanny uneasy. She doesn’t want to repeat the poor sale she had in 2020. “We do not recover or the investment”, He laments. For this year, she and the other artisans of the puppets organized themselves to have masks and alcohol in each position and thus prevent infections from increasing. (I)
Paul is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment and general news. He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established herself as a respected voice in the industry.
