Good news, at last?

“The virus is struggling to find new Filipinos to infect,” Fr. Nicanor Austriaco told a Palace briefing early this week. A Dominican priest who has an advanced degree in Biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), he can be forgiven for exaggerating the situation a bit.

Fr. Austriaco is a good source of information and analysis. He has no ax to grind, he doesn’t even live in the Philippines. He works out of his academic base in Rhode Island.

But, some might say, he is also using data generated by the DOH… could be garbage in, garbage out. But the good news claim of the Dominican is made credible by the reality on the ground.

Hospitals are no longer overwhelmed with COVID cases. One major hospital reported they don’t have even a single COVID case. People are out in the streets and crowding our malls. Life is back to normal… for now.

The Philippine situation, Fr. Austriaco suggests, may indicate “we have obtained substantial population immunity from natural infections and vaccination in urban areas of the Philippines.

“What we’re seeing, at least in the NCR, with nearly a hundred percent protection of the adults and increasing numbers of our teenagers, is probably going to be robustly protected against a future surge.”

The Dominican priest/scientist is particularly credible because he calls it as he sees it, while some local experts always appear to toe the DOH and IATF lines. Fr. Austriaco has been pointing out the successes of our government efforts, even as he suggests new policy options based on the numbers he sees.

For instance, Fr. Austriaco showed data indicating that new infections in the Philippines cannot be attributed to international arrivals to justify red tape-marred protocols, at least before Omicron. According to Fr. Austriaco, arriving international passengers account for only 1.8 cases of the average 6,000 new cases.

And even with Omicron, Fr. Austriaco’s suggestion is not to add more layers of red tape for arriving passengers to hurdle.

He urged that we “build a wall of vaccinated Filipinos around these airports. And if the Filipinos around the airports are heavily vaccinated, then it doesn’t matter if there is an OFW who returns home. Because even if the person is able to enter the community, the virus will struggle.”

How long this good news will last depends on all of us. We should continue doing our COVID self defense practices, from wearing masks, social distancing and avoiding crowds, because the pandemic is far from over worldwide.

The other good news is, the government’s vaccination performance has dramatically improved lately, and hopefully the momentum continues.

Overall, Fr. Austriaco reported the government has administered 91.77 million doses of various vaccines. Of that, 56.7 million or 73.5 percent have received their first shots, while 38.168 million or 49.48 percent have received two doses.

Fr. Austriaco observed that the government has proven itself capable of miraculous performance when it did 8.09 million vaccinations from Nov. 29 to Dec. 3. That’s an average 2.696 million a day, the fourth largest after China, India, and the US.

It is good to know the government intends to fully vaccinate 54 million more Filipinos by the end of this year. That, plus the 40 or so million already jabbed twice, gets us to the original targeted level.

Lest some people get the impression we are on our way to herd immunity, Dr. Edsel Maurice Salvana, an infectious disease specialist at UP-PGH, made this observation in a Facebook post:

“I think too many people are confused about what ‘herd immunity’ means. The first premise behind herd immunity is that vaccines are highly transmission blocking.

“We had good transmission blocking vaccines before Delta – mRNA vaccines were transmission blocking up to 90 percent and Astra and Sinovac were about 70 percent. With Delta, that number is down to 40 percent - not enough for herd immunity even if you vaccinated every single person.

“It might even be lower for Omicron. Sorry, but herd immunity is not going to happen. At least with the current vaccines.

“What we do have are vaccines that remain highly effective against severe disease. Which means instead of up to 10 people out of 100 dying from severe COVID-19, we bring it down to one or less, depending on your baseline risk.

“But a large spike of cases, even with a small percentage of severe cases, can still overwhelm healthcare systems.

“Vaccination is the single biggest intervention that ensures that ensures your survival if you get COVID-19 breakthrough infection. However, vaccination alone is not going to get us out of this pandemic. It is a very important aspect of pandemic management, and it should be used in conjuction with masks and other public health measures. Relying on vaccine immunity alone will result in European type surges.”

Given the waning immunity from all the vaccines after six months and the increased ability of variants to escape vaccine induced immunity, international experts are now saying the definition of complete vaccination is three rather than just two doses.

Experts are no longer inclined to call the third dose as a booster, but as a required third dose. Unless new vaccines are developed that effectively deals with variants and stops transmission, we may need to vaccinate our people every six months.

If that is the case, the goal posts have been moved further. The government must start procuring enough doses to give every Filipino a third shot and so on.

Indeed, we must start preparing for the next surge, which OCTA says can come courtesy of Omicron by January. With that in mind, braving the long lines at Ikea is probably too much of a risk.

It is also timely for the government to be more welcoming of private sector efforts, from procurement of vaccines to jabbing people. Giving every Filipino three jabs is a big task the government can’t do alone.

We need everyone helping out to win this war. ICTSI and other conglomerates have already shown us how. Make the rules more inclusive and friendly for private sector participation.

Boo Chanco’s email address is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco