Tim Burton-ish

“With the government deciding to slowly reopen schools, too, the vaccination of minors becomes critical to minimize the transmission of the virus from in-school activities.

“While the Philippines is slowly reopening its economy, with Metro Manila said to be ready for another easing of quarantine curbs, there’s no room for super-spreader events.

That Bloomberg Covid Resiliency Ranking that tagged the Philippines as the “worst place” to be in during this pandemic was armchair journalism at its worst.

It ranked the Philippines 53rd in as many countries on the manner of the “effective” in containing the virus spread and opening up the economy.

It took issue with the Philippines’ vaccine rollout which it blamed for the perniciousness of the Delta variant spread, as if other countries have not grappled with the same problem.

This myopic view on the Philippines by these “experts” who, we can assume, are looking at the global picture from the safety of their work-from-home setups is easily exposed by just looking at the numbers.

From Day One, on 1 March 2021, of the country’s vaccination drive, the Duterte administration has leveraged its friendship with other nations to secure donations of the vaccines.

It also worked closely with the COVAX Facility to tap into the global movement to make equitable the distribution of Covid-19 vaccines against the hoarding being done by some rich countries.

Deals were also forged by the government to procure the vaccines, even as it allowed the private sector to buy their own jabs to allow more workers to be vaccinated and to go back to work.

On Friday, 1,016,730 more doses of government procured Pfizer vaccines arrived at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 3, a batch that will be earmarked for the vaccination of minors aged 12 to 17.

Only Pfizer’s and Moderna’s jabs are, so far, given an emergency authorization use by the Philippines’ Food and Drugs Administration.

The vaccination of minors had been pilot-tested in Metro Manila last 15 October and Vaccination Czar Carlito Galvez Jr. said that come the 29th of the month, a nationwide vaccination of minors will commence.

With the government deciding to slowly reopen schools, too, the vaccination of minors becomes critical to minimize the transmission of the virus from in-school activities.

The numbers speak for themselves as to the creditable effort of the country to secure and administer the vaccine to reach herd immunity by vaccinating 70 percent of its 110,198,654 population representing 77,139,058.

As of 22 October, the Philippines has been vaccinating non-stop for 235 days already at 2,201 regularly reporting inoculation sites, administering an average of 421,098 jabs a day from 1 October.

So far, 94,678,340 vaccines have arrived on Philippine shores, with 75,804,550 deployed to the local government units overseeing their administration.

Total doses administered now stand at 54,444,161 — broken down to 29,342,939 as first doses and 25,101,222 as second doses or one-dose jabs.

If the vaccines continue to arrive, so much so that the flights bringing them in had become routine and are no longer attended by fanfare, it’s because the government has already secured 187.6 million doses.

It also continues to buy more vaccine doses to achieve its 70 percent of population vaccination target and for possible booster shots that may be greenlighted as needed.

A lot more has to be done not just by the Philippines but by every country in the world to beat Covid-19.

While the Philippines is slowly reopening its economy, with Metro

Manila said to be ready for another easing of quarantine curbs, there’s no room for super-spreader events like those thousands of people that trooped to the dolomite beach at Manila Bay.

Still, the numbers are encouraging, with the Department of Health putting at 63,051 the number of active cases as of 23 October, or 2.3 percent of the total caseload of 2,751,667, of which 2,647,031 or 96.2 percent had recovered.

A happier Yuletide season may be in store for us, very much like unlike the Tim Burton-ish Nightmare Before Christmas scenario that Bloomberg has been painting for the Philippines.