Addressing vaccine hesitancy during the COVID-19 pandemic: Learning from the past and moving forward

ABSTRACT

Excerpt@#Anong hirap ang kailangan niyong maranasan para kayo ay magpabakuna na? How much suffering are you willing to risk experiencing to persuade you to go for COVID-19 vaccination? @*@#Working at a COVID-19 Referral Center, we probably saw a lot more critically ill COVID-19 patients than in other hospitals in the Philippines. During the height of the Delta surge in 2021, our intensive care units (ICUs) for adults and pediatric critical COVID-19 were always full with a long waiting line. The typical medical history of the patients would be a senior retiree, usually a Lolo (grandfather) or a Lola (grandmother), who needed urgent support to be hooked to a mechanical ventilator because they could not breathe on their own anymore. When asked about their COVID-19 vaccination status, Lolo and Lola were often not vaccinated. Other times, the patient may not yet be old enough to be considered a Lolo or Lola but may have illnesses like heart failure, diabetes, hypertension, or on dialysis. They too were often not vaccinated. And occasionally, we admitted small children who would seemingly be out of place in the sea of adult patients in the Emergency Room. One would think that because the very young have not yet been allowed to get vaccinated, the people around them would strive to be vaccinated to protect these little ones. On the contrary, though, we saw many young patients whose exposures to COVID-19 came from their unvaccinated parents. This heartbreaking situation continued despite the intensive COVID-19 vaccination program of our government. When one thinks about it, it is possible that some of the many deaths and sufferings of patients and the anguish of grieving families, as well as the lonely exits of beloved ones dying alone amidst CPR machines and teams, may have been avoided had unvaccinated patients opted to be vaccinated. Now over 2 ½ years into the pandemic with many cases said to be mild, we continue to have a continuous flow of admissions for COVID-19 which fall into the moderate, severe, and even critical COVID-19, and some of them are because they have remained unvaccinated. Where and how can we improve the situation?