Summary:
> Fact check: United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recently deplored that 10 high income countries have administered 75 percent of all vaccines.
> Fact check: US used a defense law to disallow sale of any production in the US to outsiders
> Fact check: China has since donated vaccines to more than 50 developing countries even before it had completed vaccinations for its own country
> The key message for our Filipino family: vaccines are almost a hundred percent effective on the severe cases
Critics, rumors and fear delay recovery; Sinovac helps start optimism
Austin Ong
March 8, 2021
The mad scramble for vaccines is the incident where the reality about moralizing and hypocrisy by Western powers is clearly demonstrated along with the bias of some media and headline grabbing politicians in the Philippines, who are a major source of rumors and fear and cause of the delays in acceptance of vaccination by our countrymen.
What should our countrymen know that these media and politicians hide? First of all, stop all the chatter; the people should get vaccinated. Let’s save ourselves.
What we should have been told:
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recently deplored that 10 high income countries have administered 75 percent of all vaccines, while over 130 countries had not received a single dose. Duke University had studied that contracts show the European Union had more than enough to inoculate its population two times, and Canada and the United Kingdom by five times. The United States, which had procured almost a quarter of the world’s supply at the time covering its population several times over, used a defense law to disallow sale of any production in the US to outsiders until it was fully supplied first, and blocked and took over shipments of medical supplies for other countries. Pfizer has been accused of “bullying”, asking some countries to put up embassy buildings and military bases as a guarantee against the cost of any future legal cases, various international media reported but hardly a tweet by the loudest critics in the Philippines. Some officials criticized the Philippine government for not securing Pfizer supplies, but Biden’s spokesperson Jen Psaki said just last week that Canada and Mexico won’t be supplied yet until the US gets all it wants.
“Vaccine nationalism” was described as the biggest moral test at a critical moment. Has the West failed or succeeded?
Why do our critical media and some senators or supposed think tank analysts not mention that the Western supplies are not available yet anyway because of selfish interests, that Filipinos mostly didn’t want to be vaccinated because of disastrous management of vaccines by a previous administration, and that the Chinese, Russian or Indian donations are effective? Do they know Chinese pharmaceuticals over the last dozen years supplied major shares of vaccines in the Philippines, including for flu, at affordable prices? When vaccine nationalism began raging in Europe, Germany stated Russian and Chinese should be considered.
Ironically, the few countries that didn’t succumb to the temptation of “vaccine nationalism” were mostly from the developing world — India, Russia and China — which all shipped significant portions of their production to other countries even while not having covered their own populations totally yet.
In addition, during the global race for medical supplies in the early critical months of the pandemic, more than 70 flights of Philippine Air Force planes as well as a number of Philippine commercial jets have been allowed by China to land in several airports in southern China to pick up such medical supplies for the Philippines, according to Ambassador Chito Sta Romana.
China has since donated vaccines to more than 50 developing countries even before it had completed vaccinations for its own country, causing some domestic criticism — a price it paid for helping others. China has four vaccine producers already in phase 3 trials and more in the process of approval. Petrovax of Russian and Cansino Biologics are also in joint research and production arrangements, just as Pfizer is working with Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical.
China has been a key donor and supplier of anti-Covid equipment, PPE sets, money and supplies to the Philippines in billions of pesos for the months of the greatest pressure when nothing was available from elsewhere. China’s latest donation of 1 million vaccine doses cost nearly a billion pesos. Despite critics, these are in great demand now from the hospitals and municipalities nationwide.
India shipped millions of doses to Afghanistan, Bangladesh and even some Caribbean countries. The Russian vaccine Sputnik V was originally looked down on by the West, but it has proven to be among the most effective, inexpensive, easy to use. It will also be produced in South Korea, India, China and elsewhere. It is already approved in 18 countries and growing — Mexico, Iran, United Arab Emirates, Hungary and Venezuela, among others.
Delayed, but desperate enough to offer Philippine nurses or the use of the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) for vaccines in exchange, the government was roundly criticized. But we were still ignored by the West, and no donations or preferential supplies came. What alternatives are Vice President Leni Robredo, Senators Risa Hontiveros, Kiko Pangilinan, Richard Heydarian and other “constant-critics” proposing when there are none? It’s true our problems are also because of poor selection of some of the key managers and for allowing them to remain in control, causing many of the unnecessarily poorly managed situation procurement, information and logistics. But why demonize China, like a beggar insulting the only donor after days of starvation and continued uncertainty and risk of peril?
The key message for our Filipino family: vaccines are almost a hundred percent effective on the severe cases; have low incidence of reactions with some differences in type of reaction among brands; and have had millions of users already without major incidents. In no cases are the long-term effects known yet for any of the brands, but the theoretical safest are the Chinese vaccines using previously standard inactivated or dead virus to inoculate.
Every moment of delay costs lives and possibly hundreds of billions that we cannot afford.
Let’s know how to thank, whether it’s China or the US or whatever country, instead of demonizing when others are helping us. President Duterte’s sincere thanks to China for her donations and recognizing it as a “gesture of friendship and solidarity” and to the donor countries that made the AstraZeneca delivery policy will bring more goodwill to benefit countless more Filipinos. In the same way, the US should not forget that up to a third of the health workers and nurses who have died for Americans were Filipinos. We must not forget the frontliners who died trying to help stem the worst of the pandemic and to let the rest of humanity make a better future.
Who used Sinovac’s CoronaVac? Here are a few:
Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo, Jordan’s King Abdullah and Crown Prince Hussein, and Bahrain’s Prime Minister Salman and Crown Prince Salman.
Turkey has inoculated over 1 million people and would vaccinate more with over 10 million more arriving soon. Indonesia has ordered 125 million doses; Brazil, 100 million; Turkey 50, million; and Malaysia, 14 million.
St. Luke’s Medical Center’s president Dr. Arturo de la Peña, a Covid-19 survivor; chief medical officer Dr. Benjamin Campomanes; and assistant chief medical officer Dr. Deborah Ignacia Ona. SMLC has requested 5,000 doses of CoronaVac for its personnel.
Others inoculated were Chinese General Medical’s top oncologist, Dr. Samuel Ang; UP college of medicine professor and TCM expert Dr. Philip Tan-Gatue; and infectious disease expert Dr. Edsel Salvana, who said, “Vaccines work! Thank you, science!”
Among public officials vaccinated were vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr.; Bases Conversion and Development Authority chief Vince Dizon; Food and Drugs Administration Director Eric Domingo, an ophthalmologist; Philippine General Hospital head Dr. Gerardo Legaspi, an award-winning neurosurgeon); and 12 percent or 400 to 500 of PGH health workers.
More than 1,500 Filipino OFWs in UAE; Filipino doctors in China; Pele, football’s 80-year-old icon — the list goes on.
Austin Ong is a program manager of IDSI and an organizer of Asean networking events. He has assisted the Department of Trade and Industry in helping Filipino connect with the global economy. He studied in Northeastern Boston, UP Diliman, and Tsinghua University and taught globalization at Tsinghua University and De La Salle University.
New Worlds by IDSI (Integrated Development Studies Institute) aims to present frameworks based on a balance of economic theory, historical realities, ground success in real business and communities, and attempt for common good, culture, and spirituality. We welcome logical feedback and possibly working together with compatible frameworks (idsicenter@gmail.com).
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Critics, rumors and fear delay recovery; Sinovac helps start optimism