Valeriu Gheorghita, the president of the vaccination campaign against the Coronavirus, says that people who are not vaccinated are vulnerable to mutated strains of the virus, and that it is possible that things will get more complicated in Romania from the fall.
Valeriu Gheorghita brings up the situation in India, where although there is 75% of the adult population vaccinated with at least one dose of vaccine, the number of infections increases due to the unvaccinated, but also to those immunized with only one dose.
"However, I would also like to mention the fact that the immunity we obtain when passing through the disease has a number of disadvantages, compared to the immunity we obtain through vaccination, namely, we are not sufficiently well protected against the risk of re-illness with the new variants viral. And here is our great concern, because it is very difficult to predict, in a pandemic, what will be the circulation and the intensity with which these new mutant viral variants will produce disease among the population.
And we already have the experience of other countries that have faced this problem. And the most recent example may be the UK, where we are seeing an increase in the number of cases caused by the vast majority of the Indian strain, the Delta strain, as it is called by the World Health Organization, and very interestingly, it has been observed that people who had a single dose of the vaccine against COVID-19 had, compared to the unvaccinated, a three times lower risk of getting the disease, but those who were vaccinated with the full schedule had a risk of getting sick at least 20 times lower, compared to unvaccinated people.
As such, I am glad that in Romania we decided, based on all the scientific data available at that time and in accordance with the recommendations in the SPC of each type of vaccine, to follow the vaccination schedule as it was scientifically validated, precisely because that brings maximum benefits. And in this way, if today we are talking about 3,6 million people vaccinated with the full schedule, there are people who will be very well protected also against mutant viral variants. That's why we call attention to all people who received the first dose to show up to complete their vaccination schedule, ideally in the calendar that is recommended in the vaccination schedule."
