Online survey: 56% of Filipinos willing to get COVID-19 vaccine

More Filipinos say they are willing to be vaccinated against COVID-19 once it is available in the Philippines, based on an online survey.

According to a survey conducted by professors and students of the University of the Philippines, 55.9 percent of 15,651 respondents said they would get vaccinated against coronavirus disease.

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Of that number, 23.7 percent answered “yes” while 32.1 percent answered “probably yes.”

About 34 percent said they were unsure, 6.7 percent said “probably no” and 3.5 percent said “no.”

The survey also showed that people are more confident about vaccines from America and Europe.

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Meanwhile, 38.6 percent of respondents to the survey said they had confidence in Russia’s vaccine.

A very small percentage of respondents said they had confidence in the vaccine from China.

Side effects caused by the vaccine are the main cause of concern of the respondents.

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But according to Food and Drug Administration Director-General Eric Domingo, all vaccines have side effects, especially when it comes to the second dose.

“All of the vaccines, the second dose, usually they have stronger side effects than the first dose,” said Domingo.

Online survey: 56% of Filipinos willing to get COVID-19 vaccine

“After the first dose, you start building antibodies so pagdating ng second dose, mas malakas ‘yong immunologic reaction,” he said.

So far, only Pfizer and AstraZeneca have been granted emergency use authorization by the FDA.

The 2 vaccines are different. Pfizer is mRNA while AstraZeneca is a viral vector vaccine or part of a virus that attaches to a vector that carries a human cell.

China’s Sinovac is an inactivated vaccine, which, according to Domingo has long been used for vaccination.

“In fact, our vaccine experts think this is probably the safest. The inactivated viruses, these are the vaccines that we’ve been using for many decades,” said Domingo.

With the imminent arrival of vaccines, it is important to distribute them immediately to the priority sector.

It is also important to give the second dose of the vaccine at the right time.

According to Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health in America, many other countries can learn from the experience of their country.

“I think one of the lessons we’ve learned [is] you’ve really gotta have a pretty well organized, on the ground, local capability of getting it to people’s arms,” said Fauci.