Expert warns vs deliberate COVID-19 exposure

Dr. Nina Gloriani, Vaccine Development Expert Panel Head. Screengrab from Laging Handa briefing

The head of the country’s vaccine expert panel warned the public against deliberately exposing themselves to the coronavirus to get natural immunity against COVID-19.

Dr. Nina Gloriani made the statement in the wake of reports that those who were unvaccinated but recovered from COVID-19 were better protected than those who were vaccinated and not previously infected, based on a study conducted before the emergence of the Omicron variant.

Gloriani said there were also studies showing that natural immunity plus vaccine immunity offer higher level of neutralizing antibodies, but added that this was still no reason for people to seek out infection.

“I don’t think doctors will say ‘yes, get yourself exposed so that you could have natural immunity.’ It’s not like that,” she said at the Laging Handa briefing.

Experts do not want people to do this because there was no telling how COVID-19 would affect them, and it could lead to a severe case, she said.

“It could be that a younger person who has good immunity and general health status would recover and have mild [symptoms]. But if the person affected is elderly or have an immunocompromised condition or comorbidity, it might not be mild and lead to hospitalization, critical care, or worse, death,” she said.

The Philippines has fully vaccinated 56.84 million individuals as of Jan. 20, and another 5.87 million have received their booster shot.

If the current trends continue, COVID-19 cases in the National Capital Region (NCR) may drop to less than a thousand by Valentine’s Day and less than 500 by the end of February, independent pandemic monitor Octa Research said, even as the Department of Health (DOH) reported 32,744 new infections on Friday, higher than Thursday’s 31,173.

Almost 22 percent or 6,917 cases were from Metro Manila, lower than the 8,883 infections (30 percent) in the region the previous day.

By the end the month, cases may decrease to around 3,000 to 2,000 cases per day in the NCR by the end of January, according to Octa Research fellow Guido David.

The DOH said there were 291,618 active cases, 16,385 recoveries and 156 new fatalities.