Advisories and information on COVID-19 is not constant for two reasons, the first being the pandemic was totally new while its development continued to evolve quickly, says Fiji Institute of Pacific Health Research director
Doctor Donald Wilson.
Contributing to the Fiji Law Society’s virtual discussion last Thursday, Dr Wilson said they had been uncomfortable with COVID-19 advisories because of their inconsistency.
Dr Wilson said the second reason was the infection rate was growing extensively with its science evolving as scientists continued to do research on the virus and its vaccine.
“It is a known fact that the Alpha variant began in China which then moved to Brazil and then to India from where the Delta variant emerged,” he said.
“So, because that keeps changing, science is also evolving but the latest information that’s out from Public Health England is that at least for AstraZeneca, which is available for the most part here in Fiji, after two doses of AstraZeneca, it provides coverage of 92 per cent protection against hospitalisation.
“Yes, if you do get vaccinated, even if you do get two jabs of the vaccine, you can still get the infection, but you won’t have the severe disease or hospitalisation and the worry is hospitalisation for severe disease or death.
“We have already been reporting an increase in the numbers of deaths and also severe infection for which people are hospitalised.”
Dr Wilson said there was value for vaccination in protecting you against the disease.
“Maybe people have gotten the second dose of the vaccines and there are side effects, but the side effects are mostly mild.
“I won’t downplay that there are severe effects, yes, there are but they are very low and it happens in four in a million people, at least that’s the data that came out of Australia but I think, for the bigger part again at a population level, there are more benefits than risks to the vaccination.”