Popcom debunks depopulation from Covid vaccination ‘yarn’

The Commission on Population and Development (Popcom) has reminded the public that there was no truth in depopulation allegations caused by Covid-19 vaccines.

In a news statement, Popcom executive Director Juan Antonio Perez III said rumors have spread that there was an increase in mortality rates in the country due to the vaccination program launched in March 2021.

Perez said these claims made by advocates against Covid-19 vaccinations were based on “inaccurate assumptions and analysis of available data.”

“The increase in deaths compared to the previous years has been noted since July 2020. Comparing the first six months of 2021 to the first six months of 2020, there was an increase of 88,191 deaths,” Perez said.

“One can attribute over half of that increase, or 51 percent, to Covid-19, and the rest to ischemic heart disease, hypertensive disease, and other diseases which also increased in the same period,” he added.

Perez also said that aside from Covid-19 itself, increasing mortalities due to ischemic heart disease and hypertension could be attributable to increased vulnerability of sick members of the population to their morbid condition.

“We noted decreased attendance in health centers and doctors’ clinics caused by hesitancy among patients to go to health facilities which were swamped with Covid-19 cases, as well as increasing barriers to care as one has to obtain a schedule to see a physician, and limitations on the availability of health providers who were unavailable due to increasing caseloads and illness,” he added.

Depopulation

Perez explained that depopulation pertains to the decrease in the population living in an area represented by a negative total population change.

Based on the 2020 Population and housing Census in the Philippines, the country’s population grew 1.63 percent annually, with about 1.6 million population added annually, by calculating for registered births minus deaths, and accounting for migration, which is usually a minus in the Philippines.

Perez said the interplay of the recent number of births and deaths is still contributing to a net positive increase in the total population of the country. This means depopulation is “nowhere in the near future for the Philippines.”

Popcom said the assumption of a depopulation claim was based on the increasing number of deaths over births over a one-month period alone, in September 2021. however, from January 2021 to October 2021, there were 267,444 more births than deaths.

Perez said the recent decline in births leading to lower natural increase in population in the last two years were due to women and couples opting to delay having children; lower number of marriages and family formation in general; and increasing use of modern family planning methods.

he added the decline in births started in December 2020, when births went down to 115,997, then declined further in succeeding months in 2021, with the lowest births seen in February 2021 at 82,535. This happened well before the March 2021 rollout of vaccinations for Covid-19.