‘We have to find ways to speed up the delivery of vaccines. Having two million plus fully vaccinated and eight million more partially vaccinated is good news; but contrasting that to the target of 70 million is depressing and horrifying at the same time.’
AS the (first?) Duterte presidency enters the last 350 or so days of its term, the Philippines finds itself in a race against time. With over two million fully vaccinated and some eight million more walking about with one jab in their arms, we are still a long ways from the much talked about target of herd immunity, which means having at least 70% of the population fully vaccinated and therefore protected against the pandemic-causing virus.
We are no different from much of the developing world.
While it is widely accepted that vaccines work mainly to prevent serious infections and hospitalizations, even death, the fact that a small number of people still end up with the COVID-19 virus even after being fully vaccinated has been used by many of those who wish to belittle the effectivity of vaccines to argue against getting jabbed. I am sure if you canvass your circle of family members and friends, you will find one, or two, or maybe a handful of those who swear that they will never allow anyone to inject their bodies with anything “experimental.” Which, to be honest, is what the current vaccines still are, and why they are being given under so-called “emergency use authorization.”
But putting these two realities together — a slow rollout of the vaccines in the developing world, on the one hand, and the existence of a segment of the population that is adamantly against being vaccinated — what do you get? Millions of people in our country alone who are living laboratories where the virus could mutate and spread.
So what started as a mysterious disease first identified in Wuhan, China has now mutated into many versions, including a highly infectious one from India and another from the United States. And much of the world remains vulnerable not only with being afflicted by one or the other variant of the disease but also, and even more seriously, with producing more new variants that can be even more difficult to control and to contain.
In many ways it is not surprising that the virus first emerged in a country known for its teeming population living in urban areas that are some of the most densely populated in the world. Similarly, it is not surprising that the most infectious variant so far, Delta plus, has also emerged from the second most populous country in the world known for what perhaps are even more densely populated urban and even rural areas. A human is the host that the virus needs to survive and to thrive. Humans living cheek by jowl, sometimes in areas with less than good standards of human services are even more attractive hosts for the virus.
There should be a lesson at least for us in all these.
First: We have to find ways to speed up the delivery of vaccines. Having two million plus fully vaccinated and eight million more partially vaccinated is good news; but contrasting that to the target of 70 million is depressing and horrifying at the same time. Between today and December 31 is five months and 24 days — or about 177 days. Let’s count the eight million partially vaccinated as four million fully vaccinated and add that to the two million and you have six million out of 70 million fully vaccinated. Which means you need to vaccinate 64 million within the next 177 days. That means jabbing a little over 361,000 Filipinos per day starting today, a number we remain far from hitting.
Second: We have to find ways to keep on vaccinating the most vulnerable. These include the elderly and those with co-morbidities, but also those most susceptible to exposure. And by the latter I do not only mean the frontliners — who are getting jabbed anyway (mostly with Sinovac), but also those who live in conditions that can make viral transmission and mutation most at home — those who live in highly dense communities where “social distancing” is a luxury they only achieve in their dreams. Yes — even if we are able to vaccinate all the rich people who live behind gated villages we still need to confront the risk of the virus spreading and mutating in the denser communities, and giving rise to variants that could render any vaccination worthless.
And third, we will need to seriously confront the issue of the anti-vaxxers, the hold-outs who could themselves become the petri-dish for the virus. Do we jail them as the President (keeping in style) has suggested? Should there be a massive “get jabbed” campaign involving influencers of all genders and ages encouraging people to get vaccinated to save the lives of their loved ones? Or should we have a stealth campaign that vaccinates anti-vaxxers while they are asleep? (hehe).
I jest, but this is a serious matter. We are racing against time. This weekend I will do my own bit and finally will get jabbed after waiting 90 days since my discharge from the hospital as a critical COVID-19 patient. But millions more need to get jabbed as well, to give value to my own effort to get protection from this unbelievable — and hopefully once in a lifetime — scourge.
Stay safe. Get vaccinated.
