EDITORIAL - Waning wall of immunity

Adults may have no more time to get COVID booster shots, and prefer to get natural immunity by catching an Omicron subvariant infection. Booster uptake remains disappointingly tepid, according to Department of Health officials. The DOH is aiming to administer 21 million booster doses during another special vaccination period from Sept. 26 to 30. That’s nearly a fifth of the country’s population still without COVID boosters.

Parents may want to bring their children to the vaccination centers. Children may have stronger immunity to the coronavirus, but they can still get infected. Yesterday the Council for the Welfare of Children reported that nearly 50,000 children in the country so far have contracted COVID, and 1,342 of them died. The resumption of face-to-face classes should not lead to a spike in these grim statistics.

Another incentive for getting those primary doses and boosters this month: the DOH said yesterday that COVID vaccines might soon become commercially available. This implies that free vaccines may soon be limited, perhaps only to the indigent, and people will have to start paying for the shots. So why not get the jabs while these are still free?

Infectious disease experts have also stressed that the country’s “wall of immunity” is weakening as vaccine efficacy and natural immunity from previous infections wane. Omicron may be causing only mild symptoms, but doctors have pointed out that this is mostly among the vaccinated and boosted. COVID continues to claim lives especially of the immune compromised and the ailing elderly.

Doctors also warn that a COVID infection seems to raise the risk of death from pre-existing illnesses such as cardiovascular problems. A healthy adult who gets a mild case of COVID may find himself infecting the vulnerable in his household and eventually causing death. There are also numerous reports of even a mild Omicron infection causing long COVID, with symptoms such as brain fog, chronic fatigue and persistent dry cough.

After two years of adhering to lockdowns and other mobility restrictions, it would be unfortunate to be debilitated by COVID. In the 1918 influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 avian virus, it was reported that more people died of the disease in New York City from December 1919 to April 1920. It would be tragic to have a loved one succumb to COVID during what looks like the tail end of the pandemic, when the weapons against the virus are widely available, for free.