‘Fast-moving’ Delta variant linked to surge, requires faster vaccination pace – CARPHA

The Delta variant of the COVID-19 virus is spreading “quite quickly” in the Caribbean and the only way to safeguard the population is to achieve herd immunity in the fastest possible time, the Caribbean Community’s (CARICOM’s) top public health official warned Friday.

But the parameters of what is considered herd immunity has shifted higher with even higher vaccination rates, said Executive Director of the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) Dr Joy St John.

“Studies are showing that with the Delta variant taking hold and being entrenched in a country, really you need to get as much, even as close to 90 to 95 per cent of the eligible population vaccinated,” Dr St John told a virtual meeting. “The percentage which was 70 to 90 has now shifted more to 90 and above for all countries.”

She said she was confident of the region achieving that level of vaccination among their populations, given that countries have been able to source the vaccines and the programmes for the rollout of those vaccines were “very good”.

“We just have to get past the vaccine hesitancy and try to vaccinate as many people as quickly as possible. The only thing that can stop the Delta is to have the wall of resistance of vaccination,” said Dr St John.

CARPHA released the findings of a vaccine acceptance survey that was conducted earlier this year, which showed that the vaccine acceptance rate was over 70 per cent at the time of the study.

Staying clear of which CARPHA member countries had the highest levels of vaccine hesitancy, Dr John insisted that what was critical at this time was “getting vaccines into arms across the age range now that we have Pfizer that can be used by children”.

“I need to tell you that the Delta variant is spreading quite quickly, not only to new countries, but also, within countries that have it, it is spreading more to the point where I am sure countries will realise that they are soon coming towards community spread,” said Dr St John.

She pointed out that the Delta variant “spreads to eight to nine persons as compared to Alpha which was spreading to two to three”, adding that “it seems as if those who are affected are younger, and younger people are at risk”.

Responding to journalists’ questions, the CARPHA chief said there was still a void that was being filled with “misinformation, fake news and scare tactics” instead of credible information and research to help change behaviour when it comes to the vaccination.

“And we need people to wake up and look around them. They don’t have to look very far,” said Dr St John. “Some of the member states are struggling with the number of cases that are causing the health system to buckle and sometimes collapse, and there are increases in deaths already. What we need to do is not just give information at the regional level, but in each country there needs to be dissemination to groups, there needs to be talking with smaller groups.”

In recent weeks, Barbados has been recording double-digit cases of COVID-19, with 48 cases recorded on Thursday from a total of 1,802 tests.

Health officials have not indicated how many of those cases are caused by the Delta variant although the strain has been confirmed here.

At the same time, it was reported that 34.4 per cent of the population was fully vaccinated up to Thursday.

In the CARPHA vaccine acceptance research, which was conducted between February 17 and June 18 of this year in the 26 member states, it was found that vaccine acceptance was around 74 per cent.

The survey was done using active social media users aged 18 and older, and only six of the member states met the target sample size – Barbados, Curacao, Guyana, Jamaica, St Lucia and Trinidad and Tobago.

Of those taking part, 62.2 per cent identified as females, 33.4 per cent males and 0.3 per cent said other. The respondents ranged in age from 18 to 80 years old, although the majority were between the ages of 20 and 60.

Vaccine acceptance was determined by counting those who had already taken a vaccine at the time of the study and those who indicated they were willing to take a COVID-19 vaccine.

Presenting the findings, Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist at CARPHA, Patricia Smith-Cummings said “overall vaccine acceptance rate at the time of the study was 74 per cent, followed by 15 per cent who were undecided and 11 per cent who said we will not accept”.

Just over 64 per cent of health workers who took the survey said they were vaccinated at the time and 35.6 per cent were not. Meanwhile, of the non-health workers, 50.8 per cent said they were not vaccinated at the time of the survey while 49.2 per cent said they were.

For the health workers who did not receive the vaccine at the time of the study, 36.9 per cent said they would take it, 22.5 per cent said they would not, while 40.5 per cent said maybe. For non-health workers it was similar, with 31.4 per cent saying yes, 22.1 per cent indicating no and 46.6 per cent saying maybe they would take it.

A lot more of the respondents (53.1 per cent) said they were willing to give the vaccine to their elderly parent, compared to the number of those indicating that they would give it to their children (38.1 per cent).

Just about half (47.1 per cent) of those surveyed said they had a concern about the COVID-19 vaccine, while 52.9 per cent said they did not, with the top four concerns being possible side effects of the vaccine (39 per cent), that the vaccines were developed too quickly (20.7 per cent), not knowing enough about the vaccines (19 per cent), and not believing the vaccine would provide protection from getting the COVID-19 (16.1 per cent).

Respondents were able to select more than one of the dozen possible concerns as well as share their own.

Most respondents indicated that their most trusted source for information were scientists, doctors and health experts (76.8 per cent), followed by public health organizations (64.2 per cent) and then ministries of health (59.6 per cent).

They least trusted getting information from spiritual/natural healers (3.1 per cent), faith-based organizations/religious institutions (5.3 per cent), journalists (7.3 per cent) and friends and acquaintances (10.4 per cent).