Russell: Unhealthy people need to get vaccinated

UNHEALTHY people need to get vaccinated because they are most vulnerable to dying of COVID-19, says epidemiologist and paediatrician Professor Fiona Russell.

Speaking during a virtual discussion titled “Explain the Science”, Prof Russell said people with cancer, diabetes and other diseases were those with higher risks of dying to the virus.

“Those people need to be vaccinated, in fact, all adults over 18 years of age need to be vaccinated,” she said.

Prof Russel shared during the discussion that the AstraZeneca vaccine was potent in protecting individuals against hospitalisation.

“What’s come out of the last few weeks is the effectiveness of AstraZeneca against hospitalisation and so we know now that after a single dose of AstraZeneca vaccine the effectiveness is 71 per cent against hospitalisation from the Delta variant and it’s 92 per cent after two dozes.

“It is critical to have two doses of the vaccine and it is just effective even against the previous variant or the UK variant and these are two exciting results that have come in the past weeks.

“What’s happening in the UK, they are on the verge of a third wave,” she added.

In Israel, where all restrictions have been relaxed, Prof Russell explained that the country had a high rate of vaccination.

“In Israel, they had been using Pfizer and they had very high vaccination rates where everyone over 18 was vaccinated because they have their cases but after vaccination, their cases and hospitalisations have decreased.

“Israel is opening up and relaxing its restrictions.

“We are still doing tests on how vaccines are effective against the other new variants.

“Where there is uncontrolled infection, that is when the virus turns into a new variant, uncontrolled and so we are trying to put a study, studies are still ongoing.”

Prof Russell said they did not know if a vaccine booster was needed in the future, adding that was being closely monitored around the world.