Temper your expectations

No fanfare was expected to mark Sunday afternoon’s arrival of the CoronaVac anti-Covid vaccine from China.

President Rodrigo Duterte’s presence at the ceremony, with his long-time ally Senator Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go accompanying him as always, was merely to show gratitude to China as insistently claimed by Malacañang.

China donated the 600,000 vials of the Sinovac-made vaccine that would be used by the Department of National Defense to inoculate some of the officers of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and its civilian employees.

There’s no debate that it’s not much. But it’s a start to the government’s vaccine program that aims to inoculate at least 70 percent of the country’s nearly 110 million population.

That’s the magic number that the Department of Health says would help achieve herd immunity for the Philippines.

Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines Huang Xilian called the donation of the first Covid-19 doses to hit land in the country as a testament to the “profound friendship and partnership” between Manila and Beijing. President Duterte’s presence is a reiteration of his close ties with China.

There’s a distrust in China-made vaccines among Filipinos that the government has to erase. It’s helped no less by the negative publicity coming from the West and China’s rival Taiwan.

The results of the CoronaVac test conducted in Brazil that showed a 50.4 percent efficacy rate — the lowest among the Covid vaccines — made things worse for one of two China pharmaceutical companies to have developed anti-Covid vaccines.

Duterte’s Covid-19 warriors have boasted that the government has secured 25 million CoronaVac vials. It’s about a fifth of the country’s need in its drive to achieve herd immunity.

Deliveries from Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Russia’s Gamaleya are also expected. The vaccine drive, however, is not expected to finish in a couple of years. It is still going to be a long battle.

The Covax facility will also donate 525,600 doses that are expected to arrive today. Efforts by the Executive and the Legislative branches to provide the drug makers indemnity have been secured for the pharma firms.

Questions about the timeline of the vaccines’ delivery to the general public remain unanswered as of now, but we could expect it would take longer before the medical and economic frontline workers would have completed theirs.

It’s also expected to be a contest between the wealthier population and those who have less. It is predictable that the Philippines will mirror that of the global experience.

Even the wealthy countries, like Canada and those comprising the European Union, are not getting their doses at the same time as the United States, the United Kingdom and China — countries that are well supplied of the anti-Covid vials as they have invested in the development of their own vaccines at home.

Canada and some of those in the EU did not. So, it’s expected that they’ll be behind in the deliveries of the vaccines. Imagine how Third World and economically emerging nations, the Philippines included, will have to wait.

Canada had even spent more than the rest when it secured orders for vaccines that would inoculate its whole population three to five times over. What it got was criticism from the other countries for what appeared as a selfish action.

It’s also now paying for a bad bet investing on a vaccine developed by its EU partners — a political move brought by the uncertainty that enveloped Donald Trump’s reelection bid last year.

Trump had lost to Joe Biden, who’s friendlier to Canada and Justin Trudeau. But it’s now the EU that is threatening to ban export of its vials.

China and India will also have to contend with their gargantuan populations aside from the challenge of supplying the world with their vaccines. As of this writing, these countries only expect to complete the delivery of jabs to their citizens until the end of 2022, or a little beyond that.

China, however, is relying on its production facilities to boost a long-term influence on its partner countries. It’s a difficult juggling act between its internal need and its drive toward attaining a legitimate superpower status.

At this point, China seems to be winning the game.

Major Asian countries have been inoculating their populations with China-made vaccines.

The other parts of the world are also doing so. Saudi Arabia and Serbia have Sinopharm, the other China vaccine that was unofficially the first to be administered to Filipinos, whether the Presidential Security Group liked it or not.

The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Peru, Morocco, Argentina, Jordan and Pakistan are likely to be prioritized by China for deliveries, too.

Meantime, we could expect to reach our target vaccinations by 2023. That will depend on the supply we are getting from the manufacturers — whether they’re Chinese or not.

“We could expect to reach our target vaccinations by 2023. That will depend on the supply we are getting from the manufacturers — whether they’re Chinese or not.

“It’s a start to the government’s vaccine program that aims to inoculate at least 70 percent of the country’s nearly 110 million population.