YESTERDAY was a historic day, sort of, for mankind and a Filipina was in the midst of it. In Coventry, central England, 90-year-old Margaret Keenan became the first person to receive a Covid-19 vaccine at the start of what has been considered the biggest vaccination program in that country’s history. Britain, after all, is one of the countries worst hit by the Covid-19 pandemic. It is also the first country to approve the vaccine produced by the giant pharmaceutical firm Pfizer-BioNTech. Interestingly, the vaccine was administered on Keenan by Filipina nurse May Parsons.
This means that the worldwide fight against the Covid-19 pandemic is about to be won although it will take months before our fears will finally be driven away. It is fitting that a Filipina frontliner would be in the midst of this because of the role Filipinos played worldwide in easing the negative effects of the pandemic as frontliners.
It is just unfortunate that at a time when we have seen the light at the end of the tunnel, dark forces are also casting shadows in social media. Anti-vaccine posts are being spread around, some of them fake news about the supposed bad effects of the vaccine on the body. This should concern us more considering how some people demonized the anti-dengue vaccine the administration of former president Ninoy Aquino purchased.
And here’s another worry. The Duterte government seems to be leaning towards Coronavac, the vaccine produced by the Chinese firm Sinovac Biotech, which has a record of bribing Chinese regulatory officials in relation to vaccines for other illnesses that it produced. This, plus our usual bias against Chinese-made products, should dent efforts to make the Covid-19 immunization in the country universal and effective. Of course, authorities are also looking into the efficacy of vaccines from Western firms like AstraZeneca.
Then there is the cost. Coronavac’s price ranges from $30 per dose to $60 per dose. To acquire 50 million doses at $30 per dose, the government would need around P75 billion. I don’t know how big the Duterte administration’s budget is to purchase the vaccine. This would mean that administering the Covid-19 vaccine for the entire population would be slow.
One advantage for Coronavac is that it can be stored without costly refrigeration. Pfizer’s vaccine needs to be shipped at -70 Celsius, which is supposedly colder than the average winter temperatures at the South Pole. Coronavac can be stored at temperatures roughly equivalent to that of a home freezer. That is one of the reasons Indonesia chose Coronavac and will start mass inoculation ahead of us.
President Duterte preferred frontliners and the marginalized to be the first in line when the mass inoculation starts in the country. Senior citizens will also be given preference. The other sectors will have to wait. Which means that the whole of next year will be crucial. In the meantime, we should continue to strictly follow health protocols.