By Joel B. Belinan
Most opinion writers including me have the tendency to be pessimistic. This time, however, I’d rather be optimistic. I am referring to the recent development of the vaccine roll-out all over the world. That is because I understand that to date, this vaccination process is the only thing that will bring closure to this chapter of our lives. While we have a lot of disagreements on the issue of the pandemic, we all agree that what will prevail is the position of our leaders and all those other opinions against vaccination will eventually be set aside. This is even reinforced by the statement of the President that he will open up the country once a certain number of millions of Filipinos get vaccinated.
While it is true that our country again lagged far behind in the percentage of our population that got vaccinated, at least the process had started last month. And even with the observation that it was very slow, we are hoping that the pace will accelerate in the coming weeks especially with the expected delivery of millions of vaccines that were ordered by the government. It should be noted that the vaccines being used since the vaccination started were only those that were donated.
Indeed it is a shame to hear how our government officials making lame excuses on why we were left behind, especially when Bangladesh made the lists of countries that are leading in the administration of vaccines. Yes, it is true we are a poor country compared to others and we have weird laws that hamper the process of acquisition of vaccines. However, when we are also aware that Duterte and his minions can easily make shortcuts, and we are also aware of the trillions of money that were borrowed here and abroad in the name of this pandemic, then one can really be so frustrated. Looking at the other side of the coin, it may be better to let others be the guinea pig especially with one vaccine that was made in the shortest time in the history of medicine.
Nevertheless, even if we are behind the most important thing now is that vaccination seems to be the only thing that can bring us light at the end of the tunnel. And for me, like many others, we are crossing our fingers that sooner and not later things will turn around, and the world as we knew it will return. Hopefully, we could slowly return to our feet from already more than a year of being slumped on the ground. Yes, it has been more than a year when our world was turned upside down.
Accordingly, a protocol being followed all over the world the first people being vaccinated are the medical front liners both in government and private health institutions, senior citizens or those 60 years old and above, persons with comorbidities, essential frontline workers that includes uniformed personnel, indigents, social workers and teachers, other government workers, other essential workers, OFWs and then the rest of the population.
That means that in this country it’s those in the medical field that got the vaccines already. It is of course good logic that those that deal with infected people are the first to be given some sort of armor. This week we saw people going house to house in the barangays asking about the number of people residing while we are also aware that the City government had been conducting vaccine registration in various districts of the city.
Per the so-called experts, in order to attain some kind of herd immunity, at least 70% of the population should be vaccinated. Thus in the Philippines with our 110 million population, the government will have to vaccinate more than 70 million people. Interestingly, based on a survey conducted, a big percentage of Filipinos are not willing to be vaccinated. This is a big challenge to the government.
A friend from the health sector in one of our chats in the social media asked me if I was against vaccination. I answered her this way, I am not against science and certainly not against vaccination. However, I will not volunteer to be the first even if given the opportunity. I will be happy to be in the last batch.**
