The whole world must pay attention to Indonesia’s COVID vaccine strategy (BGR)

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  • More than 42.2 million doses of coronavirus vaccine have been administered worldwide since the writing of this article, for From Bloomberg vaccine tracker.
  • Most countries have started their vaccination programs with inoculations of the elderly, but at least one of the major countries is taking a different approach.
  • Indonesia will give people of working age a coronavirus vaccine before moving on to its larger population.

Here is an interesting thought experiment. If you were at the forefront of the U.S. coronavirus vaccine strategy, what would your priorities imply? Will you decide that the vaccine should be given as soon as possible to the most vulnerable, for example, the elderly, who we now know are at higher risk of dying from COVID-19? Or would you compete to vaccinate people who are vaccinated as quickly as possible? infecting these old people? That is, would it be better to start your COVID vaccine strategy by inoculating people who get sick more often and who usually transmit the virus to other people?

You can follow the logic behind this second choice, right? Even if it seems risky, give priority to older people who are more likely to die during the coronavirus pandemic. However, getting the vaccine out of young people as quickly as possible is much easier: these younger people can get to the vaccine site, for example, instead of health professionals needing to go to the elderly, in nursing homes and I like it. In addition, it is often younger people who contract COVID and then embrace or somehow transmit the virus to grandparents. This option eliminates this (presumably, but more at a time). In addition, this option also helps the working age population get back to work faster and the economy a little back to normal sooner. And while the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe have decided to follow a similar path: start their respective vaccination efforts targeting vulnerable populations such as the elderly, Indonesia is about to undertake a closely monitored experiment, kicking off to their own vaccination effort starting with health workers, civil servants (to increase confidence with the general public) and then the general population of young people aged 18 to 59 years. In other words, vaccinate the younger ones before the older ones.

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Now, to be clear, Indonesia is not doing so to intentionally rebel against the vaccine strategy rule of most Western countries. He’s doing it because he’s like that has to. “We are not countering the trend,” said Siti Nadia Tarmizi, head of Indonesia’s Ministry of Health. Reuters, adding that the country’s drug regulators still need more data before deciding how to proceed to vaccinate the elderly.

This is because right now the country only has access to China’s Sinovac Biotech coronavirus vaccine. Unlike the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine trusted by the United States and the United Kingdom, with its strong efficacy in people of all ages, Indonesia has defended its decision, saying it does not yet have sufficient data on the effect of the Sinovac vaccine in the elderly. people.

The launch of Indonesian vaccines here will be closely monitored, for two reasons. One is what we have already discussed: what kind of difference will it make in infection rates, starting with the people who become more infected, rather than the people who become infected the worst? However, the other thing is that we also do not know to what extent vaccinated people can transmit the coronavirus after vaccination.

In other words, think of getting vaccinated as if you were wearing gloves. Now wear a protective coat on your hands, but these gloves can still get dirty and can leave a mess on the things you touch, affecting other people if you’re not careful.

“I don’t think anyone can get too dogmatic about what the right approach is,” said Peter Collignon, a professor of infectious diseases at the National University of Australia, in an interview about Indonesia’s vaccination strategy.

Andy is a reporter in Memphis who also contributes to outlets such as Fast Company and The Guardian. When he’s not writing about technology, he can be found crouching down with protection over his growing vinyl collection, in addition to taking care of his whovianism and indulging in various TV shows you probably don’t like.

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