Delays, deliveries, doubts
Better late than never.
Last but not the least.
Cliches kept popping up at the news that the Philippines would be the last country in Southeast Asia to get the vaccines in spite of having one of the highest number of cases of Covid-19 infections.
Well, at last, more vaccines are arriving today following the donated ones from China that were delivered yesterday.
President Rodrigo Duterte had ensured the vaccination program would speed up already, signing into law last Friday a bill that gives indemnity to vaccine makers should their products cause adverse side effects.
Under the law, a P500 million indemnity fund has been allotted as compensation for potential serious adverse effects such as “death, permanent disability or hospitalization confinement.”
Following this thought, government should also think about how the vaccine program should include safety measures on site should such an event happen. If the inoculation is done at locations that are not hospitals (and with perhaps no hospitals nearby), will medical emergency facilities be put in place to attend to possible immediate “adverse effects?”
After waiting for weeks for the vaccines to arrive, what is clear at this moment is that there is a program for the rollout. Yet as to the details of this plan on the ground level, Filipinos are yet to be fully informed.
Malacañang had explained that the delivery of 117,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, donated through the Covax facility, had been delayed because of the absence of said indemnification papers.
Another reason, given by Duterte ally Senator Bong Go, is that compliance with Food and Drug Administration requirements contributed to the delay of the planned rollout in mid-February.
The first to arrive, then, were the 600,000 doses of Sinovac vaccines, donated by China.
Before it landed on our shores, however, discussions had heated up the airwaves, as people grappled with questions on Sinovac’s efficacy, especially on health workers who are set to be among the first to be inoculated along with military personnel.
Issues had arisen on whether citizens would be given a choice which brand they would prefer to be used on them.
Because findings had led to a recommendation for Sinovac to be used on non-health care workers, on which it had a low efficacy level, the question now is whether this would be followed.
Government health care workers, while willing to undergo vaccination, had issued statements that they would prefer the vaccine used on them not to be Sinovac.
Meanwhile, soldiers will get 100,000 of these initial jabs instead.
Today, some 525,600 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine from the Covax facility are expected to arrive. This amount is still a far cry from the 148 million doses that the Philippines is negotiating with seven manufacturers to meet the target of 70 million adults, or two-thirds of the country’s total population, inoculated by yearend.
The Health department said the rollout may be completed by 2023 should delays continue.
That means herd immunity, which is the desired result from the mass inoculation, may come later than the 2022 elections, and for some, this could further complicate matters — perhaps not just for the vaccine program, but also for those gunning for positions in the upcoming political derby.
“Government health care workers, while willing to undergo vaccination, had issued statements that they would prefer the vaccine used on them not to be Sinovac.
“What is clear at this moment is that there is a program for the rollout. Yet as to the details of this plan on the ground level, Filipinos are yet to be fully informed.