Trust issues

President Rodrigo Duterte seems to have sent the wrong signal when his spokesperson, Secretary Harry Roque, announced his preference for Sinopharm’s anti-Covid vaccine on Monday just as the government has approved the use of Sinovac’s serum for the priority batches of the Philippine population.

Roque, in his daily briefing that usually announces the path that the government is taking in its war against the pandemic, explicitly said the President prefers to be inoculated with the Covid-19 vaccine developed by Chinaowned biotech firm Sinopharm.

Sinovac is also a Chinese company. But it is not state-owned.

It is the Sinovac-developed CoronaVac that has received an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) from the Philippines’ Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

An EUA means CoronaVac’s rollout will be allowed in the country, which aims to inoculate at least 70 percent of its more than 100 million population.

CoronaVac is the third anti-Covid vaccine that has received an

EUA from the FDA. PfizerBioNTech and AstraZeneca were the first to be granted emergency use permits in the country.

Pfizer-BioNTech’s and AstraZeneca’s emergency authorizations, however, do not mean that they will have the first dibs in the distribution of vaccines to the general population.

The government has long been telegraphing its decision to purchase China-made vaccines despite criticism coming even from the country’s top officials.

If his words could boost the people’s confidence in China-made vaccines, Senate President Vicente “Tito” Sotto III on Monday indicated his willingness to get inoculated with either Sinovac or Sinopharm jabs.

Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto, meanwhile, said he would prefer to receive a vaccine from other companies.

Roque’s claim that President Duterte would rather have Sinopharm could also lead to the people to not fully trust Sinovac.

Sinopharm vaccine was also the jab administered last year to Duterte’s security aides. It was done secretly and without EUA.

The Presidential Security Group (PSG) claimed to have obtained the “donation” of Sinopharm doses from donors it did not publicly disclose.

We’d hate to use the term “guinea pigs,” but the PSG was so loyal to the President to have allowed themselves “tested” last quarter of last year before Duterte could be convinced of Sinopharm’s efficacy.

Sinopharm, however, has neither been given an EUA by the Philippines nor applied for such approval. It means it will take a longer time for Duterte to get shot with it unless he takes a shortcut as his PSG did.

Duterte, by the way, did disclose that many Filipinos, including members of the military, have received China’s Sinopharm vaccine. How? Only Duterte knows.

The Sinopharm vaccine has been approved by Beijing for general use in China as it has a 79 percent efficacy rate based on interim Phase 3 trials.

China’s Embassy in the Philippines has committed to deliver vaccines to the country in only five days after the issuance of an EUA. That means Sinovac vials are now in boxes on their way for shipment to the Philippines.

It’s safe to say the government’s inoculation program will finally begin as early as next week.

The government, however, is cautious about a general rollout. It is considering Brazil’s experience of logging just 50.4 percent effectivity during its trials as against the same vaccine’s 91.25 percent efficacy rate in Turkey.

That Brazil figure is far from Oxford’s 70 percent or Pfizer and Moderna’s 95 percent efficacy rates. But Sinovac’s is the only vaccine available that could be delivered the fastest.

So, we take the big gamble like Indonesia, Turkey, and Singapore did before us. Did they have complaints? There’s none, as of now.

The government, however, is taking precautions against administering the jabs to the Filipino health care workers. The Philippines is again leaning on the results of the Brazil trials that showed less efficacy rate among the targeted recipients of Sinovac shots, who were mostly health workers.

The first Sinovac vaccines to arrive will then be given to the “other frontliners,” meaning policemen and soldiers, and other economic frontliner workers.

We’d know from there whether we are doing the right thing by trusting these China vaccines.

They should work, because each of these vials now becomes China’s ambassador of goodwill, not only to the Philippines, but the whole world.

China is aching to shed its image of being a country of knockoffs and poor-quality goods. It’s no longer the land of fake LV and counterfeit Nike.

In the last two decades, China has become an economic and military superpower that has the capability of sending rockets into space with regularity.

A couple of weeks ago, a Chinese rocket has made it into Mars’ orbit.

It could not afford to lose this game of saving lives. But first,

China has to earn our trust.

“They should work, because each of these vials now becomes China’s ambassador of goodwill, not only to the Philippines, but the whole world.

“It’s safe to say the government’s inoculation program will finally begin as early as next week.