Watch out for booster hoppers.
“Vaccination hoppers,” as termed by the Philippine News Agency, are persons fully inoculated against coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) who go to another local government unit to get another dose of their preferred vaccine brand as a booster shot.
Persons with weak immune systems, such as organ transplant recipients and persons taking immune-suppressing maintenance medicine, are shown by research to have a weak response to initial doses of the vaccine, reported the American media organization National Public Radio on Saturday, Aug. 14, 2021.
US federal health agencies recently approved booster shots for immunocompromised persons to enhance their protection against Covid-19.
In the Philippines, though, Covid-19 boosters are not just immoral but also illegal, declared National Task Force Against Covid-19 head Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr.
In an Aug. 14 PNA report, Galvez said that Covid-19 vaccines are “precious,” especially because many Filipinos remain unvaccinated.
He singled out as among the vulnerable who are still awaiting their initial dose of the Covid-19 vaccine “residents in far-flung areas or geographically isolated and disadvantaged areas.”
Based on ourworldindata.org, only 11 percent of Filipinos are fully vaccinated and have a degree of protection from the virus, including variants such as Delta, which is highly transmissible.
Only 1.9 percent of the Philippine population received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine.
According to the United Nations, the Philippine population is 111,185,350, as of Aug. 9. This means that 96,731,254 Filipinos, or 87 percent of the populace have yet to be vaccinated with the first dose.
The figure definitely implies that even urban centers are deprived of the Covid-19 vaccine supply to meet the demand of citizens.
The slow rollout of the vaccination program in the country was initially blamed on vaccine hesitancy among many Filipinos. Many Filipinos were reportedly staying away from being vaccinated due to cognitive and attitudinal baggage left by false claims that vaccines are more harmful than Covid-19 and that the virus is a “plandemic,” or a conspiracy organized by opportunists, for instance.
Mistrust lingering from the 2017 Dengvaxia controversy also made some Filipinos scared of the Covid-19 vaccine.
Yet, by July 30, when President Duterte announced the lockdown again of many local government units as an attempt to control the rise of cases of infection with the Delta variant, many citizens personally experienced the root cause of the country’s slow pace of vaccination.
It is not the hesitancy of citizens to be inoculated but the intermittent and inadequate supply of vaccines that slows down or even halts the setting of vaccination appointments.
Local governments must manage the crowds of citizens who risk going to vaccination centers without registering or receiving a confirmed appointment in their attempts to get inoculated.
Last Aug. 5, a day before the reimposition of the nationwide lockdown, vax centers in Metro Manila and other cities in Luzon drew crowds who panicked due to fake news spread through social media that no vaccination meant no work or no government aid.
Overcrowded vaccination centers present a real public health threat as potential superspreaders of the Delta variant.
Yet, the reports of booster-seeking opportunism surfacing in what seemingly is a widespread scarcity of vaccine supply should challenge local officials to confront and deal with the root of lapses in stepping up Covid-19 vaccination in the country.
Instead of blaming citizens for staying away from inoculation, the government should address the intermittent and insufficient supply of vaccines that makes everyone, even the vaccinated, vulnerable to the virus, the rise of variants and deleterious consequences in other spheres, such as recession.