"Are we that attached to our racial bias?"
"Are we that attached to our racial bias?"From the 1800s to the Cold War, history shows that politics and vaccinations are inextricably linked.
Right now on the global stage, we are seeing how politics colors our view of COVID-19 vaccines, possibly furthering a racist political agenda rather than a possible solution to global pandemic. And it boils down to one simple measure – efficacy, Santa Banana!
Vaccine efficacy is defined as the measure that pertains to the percentage reduction of disease in a vaccinated group of people using the most favorable conditions like in a clinical trial. In plain English, efficacy measures how mild or manageable the reactions are in the vaccinated group versus an unvaccinated group during a clinical trial.
In a recent House of Representatives hearing on vaccination, Dr. Edsel Salvana, the Director of the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology of the National Institutes of Health at the University of the Philippines, Manila, discussed what is most important from a clinical standpoint with respect to any vaccine that is produced.
Prevention of severe diseases is considered to have occurred, he said, when a vaccinated person experiences mild symptoms rather than severe ones in a COVID-19 case. This is how I understand what Salvana said: “if your symptoms do not warrant being admitted to the hospital for intubation, then the vaccine has done its job quite splendidly.
Of the COVID-19 vaccines, AstraZeneca, Sinovac, and Moderna prevent 100 percent of severe cases of diseases, as per data presented by Salvana which is also easily verifiable through reputable news sources. One hundred percent of severe cases prevented. Let that sink in for just a moment. Results showed that 100 percent of all test subjects across three clinical tests experienced no severe symptoms after receiving the vaccine, and this was reported in no less than the House of Representatives by a doctor who specializes in these matters.
When Salvana went to share that Pfizer’s vaccine prevented severe diseases in 89 percent of their sample population, I caught myself thinking. “My gulay! What a poor showing in comparison!” But in reality, this is not a poor showing at all!
It is simply that the vaccine works 89 percent of the time. This is definitely better for the world compared to a vaccine that works 0 percent of the time.
It is important to note that Salvana’s message wasn’t that one vaccine is better than another based on the efficacy ratings. He underscored that each of the available vaccines could contribute toward the taming of the COVID-19 pandemic. Even the hotly contested and publicly vilified Sinovac, which actually performed markedly better than Pfizer in preventing severe disease, as per data Salvana presented it’s expected to help to counter the pandemic.
As Dr. Salavana and experts in the world have said numerous times, the most important functions of a vaccine is the prevention of severe disease. Sinovac is one of the three vaccines that do this 100 percent of the time. So, what is the big problem with Sinovac? Are we wary, dismissive and derisive of it, simply because it is Chinese? How come so few people have noticed that this is a political bias, and not one that had anything to do with tangible facts?
The whole Covid-19 pandemic is like an orchestrated study in racial discrimination. First, it was called the Wuhan virus, or the more comical (yet by no means less derogatory), “Kung Flu” by the disgraced former US President Donald Trump. This had strong racist undertones surrounding Covid-19 from the beginning.
Asians have been on the receiving end of violence and hatred, simply for being Asian during this pandemic. Even with Trump gone, people are still treating Asians poorly, and this extends to how countries and media interviews regard and report the vaccines developed in China.
From my own personal experience I have asked some friends if they wanted to get vaccinated by Sinovac, and they tell me they would rather wait for Pfizer or AstraZeneca.
Call it colonial mentality, my gulay, since it’s a fact. When I asked them why, they told me that when they get reminded of anything Chinese, any product from China is thought of as inferior. They told me that when they bought shoes in Hong Kong, they knew they were manufactured from mainland China. They cry out in unison that sooner or later Chinese products are inferior to US-made or to those manufactured in Europe. The irony of it all is that most of the products we use in our ordinary lives come from China.
It seems that this bias against Chinese products is worsened by what China is now doing in the Philippines in connection with the West Philippine Sea dispute.
In the Philippines, where racial tensions with Mainland Chinese are escalating due to the special treatment given by the Duterte government to Mainland Chinese over Filipinos, we have a derisive view of the Sinovac vaccine simply because it comes from China.
And we are Asians, Santa Banana! As I said, this discrimination is inborn. When I was a boy, I used to hear derogatory words for that poor Chinese at the street corner where we used to buy hopia. “Insik Viejo…” and such derogatory names were used against the Chinese sari-sari store owners. And yet, Filipinos bought from them and even had a long list of unpaid debts.
Vaccines and mass immunization are absolutely necessary but they are also linked to a big political issue. This is an issue that requires more scrutiny, more facts than opinions or feelings.
And yet, factually speaking, China’s economy is the only one to recover from the lockdown and actually reported growth. Its GDP grew by 6.5 percent in the 4th quarter of 2020. This only means that despite the global pandemic, China has something when it comes to fighting the COVID-19 scourge.
The facts clearly state that China is into something when it comes to combating the COVID-19 pandemic. Their economy and their health show this beyond reasonable doubt. Are we really that attached to our racial bias that we will sacrifice millions of lives and numerous months of economic activity, simply to prove a point?