Poll showed over half of QC residents willing to get vaccinated vs. COVID-19, says mayor

More than half of Quezon City residents who answered a poll said they were willing to be inoculated against COVID-19, Mayor Joy Belmonte said on Monday.

At a Palace briefing, Belmonte said 37,899 out of 74,793 residents who answered the survey said they were willing to be vaccinated.

She said 10,819 residents refused to get vaccinated while 26,725 said they were undecided.

“Marami namang willing magpabakuna rito sa Lungsod Quezon at kailangan pa natin kumbinsihin ang mga undecided,” she explained.

Due to this, the city government launched a vaccine confidence campaign to convince Quezon City residents to get inoculated.

The campaign will remove the doubts and fears over vaccines by sharing testimonies from vaccine recipients.

Health experts earlier said that Filipinos’ trust and confidence in vaccines may be the next challenge in the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Over and above the issue of safety, we’re dealing with a bigger issue of trust and vaccine confidence,” Department of Health (DOH) technical advisory group member Dr. Anna Ong Lim said.

Earlier, the results of an OCTA Research survey showed that only 25% of Metro Manila residents were willing to get vaccinated.

A separate survey by pollster Pulse Asia showed that 47% of Filipinos were not inclined to get a COVID-19 jab, mostly due to safety reasons.

Experts from the World Health Organization said that 65% to 70% of the population needed to get vaccinated to reach herd immunity from the disease.

According to the WHO, herd immunity or population immunity is a concept used for vaccination in which a population can be protected from a certain virus if a threshold of vaccinations was reached.

According to the DOH, an intensified information dissemination on the benefits of getting a COVID-19 vaccine can increase vaccine confidence up to 85%.  — DVM, GMA News