Chapter I

THE RESEARCH PROBLEM

Introduction

COVID-19 pandemic shaped the world into a mold of change as millions of lives

transitioned to a varied dimension of living, where every area of life was prompted to

make a shift from their conventional stature. Hospitals receive manifold patients daily,

double to triple than usual. Business sectors venture into an online mode of marketing

for their products. Education makes its massive leap to an online educational setting for

learning. One of the worst downfalls the pandemic brought was the economic downturn

experienced by the country with the onset of COVID-19 pandemic in the earlier year of

2020 with GDP contracting by 9.6% year-on-year which was the largest annual decline

ever recorded for the Philippines since 1946. With the advent of the said disease, most

of the people were clinging on to their hope of seeking the edge of the health dilemma

through the development of COVID-19 vaccines. But ironically, in the early roll-out of

vaccines in March of 2021, there seemed to be a towering level of vaccine hesitancy

among Filipinos with six in ten of them being unconvinced of getting inoculated even

after the long hopes of COVID-19 vaccine production for people’s safety for over a year.

People’s trust in the protection level of vaccines was a great dilemma to confront.

Although, there was a steady rate of increase in the vaccination in the Philippines for

the year 2021, latest worldwide data show that still, almost half of its total population is

not yet vaccinated. Some people could have been vaccinated but their level of trust in

vaccines could not be totally inferred as some were merely driven by certain sectoral
mandates or even privileges. Generally, in both populations of vaccinated and

unvaccinated individuals, confidence in vaccines can still be a question.

Vaccine hesitancy is defined as the reluctance or refusal to have oneself

vaccinated. To start off, such was a deemed concern during the earlier distribution of

COVID-19 vaccines in the Philippines at the end of the first quarter of 2021. According

to a survey presented by Pulse Asia which was conducted from 22 nd of February to 3rd

of March, 61% of the respondents disagreed to getting vaccinated. This was an

increase in the rate of vaccine hesitancy basing on a survey conducted also by Pulse

Asia in the first quarter of the year which was at 47%. This was a social quandary that

alarmed the authorities as they target half of the total population of the country to be

vaccinated by the end of 2021, 70% by May elections, and 90% by the late 2022.

Basically, the vaccination program in its commencing endeavor of inoculating large

number of people in the early phase of the year was not off to a good start.

Although there was a steady rate of increase in vaccination among Filipinos until

the earlier of August, peaking with an average of 523,018 doses administered daily

during its starting week, data show that there was a significant shrinkage in the

inoculation rate nationwide as of October. It has dropped to 300,000 in the said month.

In a statement by Galvez (2021) to President Rodrigo Duterte, he highlighted the fact

that in March and September (month where there was also a seen decrease in

vaccination rate), there was a low throughput due to insufficiency in vaccine supplies.

However, the current dilemma confronted by the country is that there is an apparent
decline in the administration of vaccines among the Filipinos given that there are

multifarious vaccines available with over 39 million vaccines still stockpiled.

But where exactly does this vaccine hesitancy root in? Vaccine hesitancy unveils

itself among certain populations of individuals in the country due to misinformation set

across the broad horizon of information exchange on a local or global scale. Some

Filipinos fall into a trap of erroneous assumptions about vaccines which might be

groundless by nature due to some twisted hearsays coming from unverified sources

mostly from less informed people. In a report published by Westerman (2021), an

interviewee who is a breast cancer survivor and a diabetic person, fears getting

inoculated and still has no plans of receiving vaccine due to stories shared by common

acquaintances to her, influencing her reluctance toward vaccines. Even though the virus

poses fear in her, she holds uncertainties regarding vaccines’ effects in light of her

comorbidities so she takes no courage of being inoculated as of the time being. This is

due to her inclination to believing stories of peers about people getting vaccinated and

eventually becoming weak and meeting their own demise. Aside from some conspiracy

theories associated with vaccines, many of the Filipinos opt to not getting vaccinated as

they are of wait in acquiring better optional jabs to arrive in the country. The most

dominantly handed out vaccines are from China which are not as highly potent in terms

of efficacy rates as other vaccines such as Pfizer or Moderna.

Another reason why vaccine hesitancy feasibly subsists is due to the traumatic

encounter of many Filipinos on the outburst of controversial dengue vaccine named

“Dengvaxia” in February 2018. In an article written by Lo (2019), the relabeling of

Dengvaxia use in 2017 caused safety concerns among people after the company Sanofi
(the creator of Dengvaxia) altered their instruction of having the vaccine administered

only to those who had prior condition of dengue disease or this could potentially develop

a greater severity of the disease among people who could receive it without former

experience of dengue. The following year, scandals about such vaccine have come to

surge with reported allegations regarding its effects that caused some deaths. There

was even a lawsuit filed against government officials and executives of Sanofi and

distributor Zuellig Pharma after the alleged death of a 10-year-old girl who had pre-

existing condition of dengue, received Dengvaxia and still died. Although, up to the

freshest studies made in 2019, the year when the Philippines’ Food and Drug

Administration permanently withdrew the vaccine’s license in the country, there were

NO proven death cases that necessarily were linked to the vaccine. But the heavy loads

of issues it faced marked a grim stain to the inoculation confidence level of Filipinos that

up to the current pandemic, vaccine hesitancy still manifests within certain individuals

who were submerged in the waves of information and misinformation about the

Dengvaxia vaccine. In an article published by Larson et al. (2018), it presented the

remarkable drop in vaccine confidence from 93% (“strongly agreeing” that vaccines are

important) in 2015 to only 32% in 2018. Subsequently, such a decline provides a more

vivid discernment of the maximal vaccine hesitancy that transpired in the early roll-out of

COVID-19 vaccines and even in the present with some people still lingering on the

trauma propelled by the public uproar against the vexed Dengue vaccine. Skopeliti

(2020) even stated that the politicization of the Dengvaxia controversy which was used

as a propaganda against the accountable regime of such time, worsened the layers of

ignominies in the scandal, setting people’s trust on vaccines more at a disadvantage.

 On another note, although there are no implemented mandatory vaccinations in

the country yet, there are certain companies and even the educational department itself

making vaccination as a pre-requisite for participation in work and education. In a news

report by Inquirer, it stated that the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of

Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF), through Resolutions No. 148 and No. 149 dated

Nov. 12 and Nov. 18, respectively, has ordered all establishments and employers to

oblige their employees to get vaccinated by the following month (Pazzibugan et al.,

2021). “No work, no pay” rule would apply to all workers who would refuse to get

vaccinated and not present any negative RT-PCR test at work. In another news report

written by Magsombol (2021) in December of the previous year published by Rappler, it

stated that the Commission on Higher Education allows only vaccinated students to

participate in face-to-face classes while unvaccinated students can still pursue their

education through remote learning. Given these, it only goes to show that though there

might be progressive inoculation that transpires, people’s reason for getting vaccinated

may not be totally attributed to their vaccine protection confidence.

To take note, if there may be lacking in the present studies about Covid-19

vaccines, that would be their long-term effects which could also be the reason why

people cannot totally put their confidence in vaccines yet. However, there are already

published documents of the long-term effects of Covid-19 disease. Some of them are

even irreversible or might take time to have a cure like distorted sense of smell –

Parosmia, in which such symptoms could have been prevented early at once with

vaccines. If there might be long-term risks, the chances might be minimal compared to
the long-term damages that could be brought about by Covid-19 which are already

proven.

With legion of published documents abetting the indisputability in the existence of

vaccine hesitancy and non-estimated confidence in vaccines among certain minorities

due to their lack of substantial knowledge and awareness on vaccines, this research

aims to further assess students’ level of awareness on COVID-19 vaccines’ general

information including their protecting capacity and how it fuels an effect to their

confidence level for vaccine protection, particularly the Senior High students of Our

Lady of Caysasay Academy. Furthermore, this research aims to provide respondents

with more accurate and valid data about COVID-19 vaccines to still promote vaccination

programs and to take a further step to an initiative of a reduction in vaccine hesitancy

among eligible groups for vaccination and also raise the confidence level of inoculated

individuals about the protecting capacity of vaccines to their body. This research could

also be a steppingstone in further investigation toward the sufficiency of governmental

or administrative schemes on information dissemination about vaccines. The output

could be used as a basis to strengthen the need of a ramped-up strategy for better

knowledge propagation about the matters of COVID-19 vaccines, from their synthesis

process down to their side effects. In here, resolutions acting on vaccine hesitancy and

low confidence level of even the vaccinated individuals could burgeon, ameliorating the

prior undertakings of the authorities and experts in fostering vaccine inoculation and

protection confidence level in the country.

The study shall be conducted through a survey where the research questionnaire

will be sent to the respondents through a Google form to which they can submit their
answers. Basically, this research will be made feasible via online method of survey

distribution as it is reckoned to be the most conducive process to materialize the

research at the height of COVID-19 pandemic for both the researchers’ and

respondents’ safety along the process of piloting the research.

With proven existence of vaccine hesitancy anchored in adults’ susceptibility to

misinformation especially in parents with uncontrolled paranoia for their children, then

even students themselves cannot be spared from falling victims of misleading

information and have vaccine hesitancy and low vaccine protection confidence level

resonate within them. Their awareness level could be affected and so is their vaccine

protection confidence level. These data carpet a foundational framework for the

possibility of a relationship between the students’ level of awareness on COVID-19

vaccines and their confidence level for vaccine protection. Lastly, this shall be strong

grounds for the development of awareness program that can be devised to cultivate

knowledge or awareness on vaccines as the whole introduction to the research topic

gives off a preview, that with right amount of reliable information on vaccines, more

people can be further educated and enlightened which can induce a greater

motivational urge among eligible groups to have themselves inoculated and for the

vaccinated group to be confident about the vaccines administered to them.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The study will assess the level of awareness regarding COVID-19 vaccines and the
confidence level on vaccine protection of Senior High School students in Our Lady of
Caysasay Academy.
Specifically, the study seeks to answer the following questions:

1. What is the level of the students’ awareness regarding COVID-19 vaccines’ general
information including their protecting capacity?

2. What is the confidence level of inoculated students regarding vaccine protection?

3. Is there a significant relationship between the students’ level of awareness on

COVID-19 vaccines and their confidence level on vaccine protection?

4. How can the awareness program be devised to propagate awareness about

COVID-19 vaccines and vaccine safety and protection?