We should be vigilant, and maintain the public health measures that the Ministry of Health have recommended.

While we have documented a decline in the number of reported cases during this current wave, we must continue to adhere to protocols, including vaccination as the most effective strategy. Viruses mutate resulting in the emergence of more transmissible variants as demonstrated by SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19. More alarmingly, we expect COVID-19 disease to be associated with the development of newer variants. What we know is that the more unvaccinated persons we have in our population, the more likely it is for variants to reproduce and spread. Why??? Unvaccinated people have less protection against COVID-19 thereby allowing more of the virus to multiply in them if they become infected. On the contrary, the vaccinated person has a level of immunity, which creates a hostile environment for the virus to multiply, thus protecting the community from developing severe disease.

There is still a lot to learn about how variants adversely affect vaccinated persons. During this wave, we noted more people who were vaccinated becoming infected – referred to as breakthrough infections. However, symptoms were generally mild, were of a shorter duration, or in many cases, asymptomatic.