Coronovirus in the Philippines

Good luck with it Jim, as they say over here take what you are offered any vaccine is better than no vaccine.

Tita Teresita who lives with the kids and was very anti vax went to get her first vaccination last weekend and of course it turns out that she knew someone at the Villar Sipig centre and she ended up getting the Pfizer injection

I laughed when my son told me that as Villar has been buying her vote for decades but at least she got something worth a little more than the usual 300 peso payment back this time.

My son took this photo, he was with her as Teresita is not really capable of answering all the questions that they asked, so he was there to help.

Social distancing?


They asked him if he wanted the vaccine as at over 6' 2" he looks like an adult but he said I am only 15 and they replied that he was eligible but he wanted to wait till he got my permission, I wish he had just gone ahead and taken it.

Evidence is growing that different second vaccine doses still work very well, they are certainly considering a deliberate policy of using a different vaccine for the autumn booster programme in the UK so I would not worry too much if you get a different one second time, you might even get a better result.

More important is the gap between the doses and here I have to admit that my initial outrage at the change from a 4 week gap to a 12 week gap in the UK was unjustified as the data from the vaccine rollout has borne out the the notion that a longer gap achieves better protection particularly with the Oxford Astra Zeneca (Vaxzevria) vaccine.

Recent work is indicating that the sweet spot for second vaccination is after 8 weeks and that 12 weeks is close to being spot on also peak protection with the Oxford vaccine appears to be reached about 5 weeks after the second dose when the numbers start to look almost the same as the Pfizer vaccine.