Zhongyuan Community, Daxue Road Street, Zhengzhou, organizes a new crown vaccination session for the elderly in its jurisdiction
Henan Daily reporter Li Xiaomin correspondent Hu Linwentu
According to the data from this newspaper, as of 24:00 on April 4, the province has vaccinated 220.6 million doses of the new coronavirus vaccine, and a total of 88.0651 million people have been vaccinated, with an immunization coverage rate of 88.63%. Among them, a total of 40,888,800 doses of booster immunization were received for people over 18 years old in our province, with an vaccination rate of 56.53%. Experts reminded that the supply of new coronavirus vaccines in various parts of our province is currently sufficient. It is recommended that the general public take the booster immunization as soon as possible after completing the basic vaccination for 6 months.
Experts from the National Center for Disease Control and Prevention once said that full vaccination can effectively reduce the risk of hospitalization, severe illness and death, especially the elderly vaccination can effectively reduce the risk of severe illness and death.
“Some elderly people think that if they don’t go far, they just walk around the door, the probability of infection is low, and they don’t need vaccination.” said Li Feng, director of the Immunization Planning Institute of the Zhengzhou Center for Disease Control and Prevention. From the perspective of the epidemic situation, the vegetable market, chess and card room, etc. at the door of the house, these places where the elderly tend to gather, are often high-risk areas for the spread of the epidemic. Moreover, even if they do not go out, other members of the family may bring the risk of new coronavirus infection home, resulting in infection and illness of the elderly in the family.
Some elderly people worry that they have underlying diseases, and the adverse reactions of vaccines will be aggravated. In this regard, Li Feng said that more than 1.3 million elderly people over 60 years old in Zhengzhou have been vaccinated against the new crown vaccine. From the data point of view, the incidence of adverse reactions is not higher than that of conventional vaccines. Moreover, due to the relatively low body resistance and possible underlying diseases, the elderly are more vulnerable in the face of the new coronary pneumonia virus, especially the highly infectious Omicron variant strain. The data of the epidemic in Hong Kong also confirms this.
Li Feng reminded that research results at home and abroad show that strengthening the immune strategy can increase the body’s ability to neutralize the Omicron strain by many times. Vaccine boosters have become an option for more and more countries.