An infectious disease expert urged the public to get vaccinated against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) as vaccines could protect them against severe illness and death.

“Ang pinaka magandang effect ngayon ng vaccines natin (The best effect of our vaccines) is to protect people from severe disease. And the more people are protected, the better,” said Dr. Edsel Salvana, who is a member of the Department of Health’s (DOH) Technical Advisory Group.

“For everybody, please get vaccinated because this is the only way we’re gonna open up,” he added.

Salvana said that by getting vaccinated, it can help the country’s healthcare system not to be overwhelmed with patients.

“Yung pagbabakuna po (With vaccination), we can bring down that need for hospitalization by 90 percent. So even if the number of cases are very high, the number of people who will need hospitalization is much lower and so hindi mao-overwhelm yung ating healthcare system (our healthcare system will not be overwhelmed),” he said.

“The more people that we vaccinate now, the less burden it will be for our hospitals,” he added.

Salvana said that those fully vaccinated individuals who contracted COVID-19 only developed the mild to moderate form of the illness.

“What we really observed among vaccinated patients who had breakthrough infections, most of them were mild or moderate, so we were able to manage them,” he said.