A tenacious bug

The other day there was mass antigen testing in our office. The reason: someone’s child got COVID and we wanted to make sure there was no bug going around.

Fortunately, everyone (including the child’s parent) tested negative.

I’ve had several reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction or RT-PCR tests since the start of the pandemic; it was my first antigen swab test. How accurate is antigen testing?

President Marcos tested positive in an antigen test. Department of Health officials have explained that only positive results need confirmatory testing using the more accurate RT-PCR test. But if a person is already showing symptoms, as Marcos did with his fever and nasal congestion, a confirmatory test is unnecessary, the DOH said.

Last week I considered getting an RT-PCR test after I developed a cold with occasional heavy sneezing fits, even if it seemed more like an allergic reaction to ventilation from a rarely used air-conditioning unit.

To my relief, the cold quickly disappeared, with no one else in the household catching it.

Until recently, my coronavirus paranoia had weakened enough for me to begin resuming some face-to-face meetings. But now I’m becoming praning again, as both the DOH and OCTA Research group report a steady rise in COVID cases, positivity and attack rates.

More and more countries are also reporting outbreaks of new and highly contagious subvariants of the Omicron strain that can penetrate natural and vaccine immunity.

Experience in other countries shows that the subvariant infections are mostly mild or asymptomatic and hospitalizations are relatively low.

But epidemiologists stress that Omicron remains lethal, especially for the unvaccinated vulnerable sectors. The high Omicron-driven death rate this year in Hong Kong, which for the first two years of the pandemic recorded one of the lowest infection numbers, has been attributed to the refusal of many elderly residents (partly in protest against Beijing) to get vaccinated. In our country, the previous administration failed to achieve its target of vaccinating 70 million people by end2021, but the number was reached before Rodrigo Duterte stepped down as president. Meanwhile, booster uptake has been disappointing.

So Omicron B.A. mutations (I’ve lost track of the subvariants’ numbers) are going around. I don’t want to catch the tenacious coronavirus and infect vulnerable people around me who might develop bad infections or long COVID.

And I’d feel safer if vaccination and especially the booster rate could go up significantly.

Unfortunately, vaccine complacency has set in, according to Dr. Rontgene Solante. The infectious disease expert of San Lazaro Hospital, a member of the Vaccine Expert Panel, says he would go along with suggestions to redefine a fully vaccinated person as one who has had one COVID booster shot.

But this could be seen as a vaccine mandate, and even health experts say this cannot be done for vaccines with emergency use status.

Ironically, the generally mild infection caused by the Omicron subvariants among the inoculated is contributing to the vaccine complacency.

Omicron is reported to have a shorter period of infectiousness. The symptomatic period for Omicron is also supposed to be shorter than the infection caused by the original Wuhan virus as well as the killer Alpha, Beta and Delta variants.

So people who develop a bad cold, cough and flu-like symptoms simply take paracetamol and, for those with the means, subject themselves and all other members of the household to antigen tests that have become widely available.

Those who test positive no longer report to health authorities or get confirmatory RT-PCR test. They simply isolate at home, unless moderate symptoms develop. How can vaccine / booster complacency be overcome, short of making the jabs mandatory?

Early vaccine hesitancy was overcome partly because of a carrot-and-stick approach imposed by both the government and private sector. Vaccine cards were required for mass transportation and entry into malls (later limited to food courts and individual establishments).

But with a much improved vaccination rate and a focus on economic recovery, such schemes have been dropped on mass transport, malls and many private establishments.

The private sector also initially offered substantial discounts for goods and services for the fully vaccinated. One major supermarket chain offered P200 discount for every single purchase worth P3,000.

But this time, according to former presidential adviser on entrepreneurship Joey Concepcion, high inflation has eaten into the operating costs of private businesses. While prices of raw materials have surged, businesses can pass on the costs to consumers only gradually over a long period.

What can be implemented with less pain is a slowdown in the grant of discounts.

The last time I bought meat at the supermarket chain with the P200 discount for the fully vaccinated, in endJune, I still got the rebate. But for the first time since the outlet opened, there was not a single meat product on sale.

It was the same in the meat section of S&R Membership Shopping, where I bought vitamins the other day. Some of the vitamins at least were still on sale. On One News’ “The Chiefs” last Monday, I asked Doctor Solante if Marcos’ second bout with COVID has given booster uptake a boost. It didn’t seem so, Solante said.

Both Solante and Concepcion are hoping that local government units will take the lead in encouraging vaccination and booster uptake. LGUs can improve access to the jabs and even carry out a house-to-house campaign.

This will reach the elderly and health-compromised for whom trooping to a vaccination center is too much trouble. There are also daily wage earners and other employees who don’t want to lose half a day’s work just to wait in line for a booster shot.

Omicron has led to a lockdown of key areas in China including Shanghai and strict curbs on activities in the capital Beijing. But this is China’s zero-COVID policy – something that Duterte embraced at the start of the pandemic, and dropped quite belatedly when he saw the economic conflagration it had spawned.

Vaccination plus strict compliance with minimum safety protocols such as masking are options that won’t ruin the economy. But their implementation calls for a stronger nudge.