"Certainly, there is a lot more work to be done while we await a vaccine."
We watched the President on Monday night thank his “friends” Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping for offering COVID-19 vaccines to the Philippines once they are ready.
The President has been particularly gung-ho about the Russia’s Sputnik-V vaccine, despite international doubts about its efficacy and even safety, given the speed with which it was developed and the testing shortcuts that seemed apparent. In fact, Russian authorities cleared the vaccine for limited use ahead of crucial phase 3 clinical trials.
None of this stopped the President from declaring that he, too, wanted to be vaccinated with Sputnik-V.
The Palace subsequently said the government plans to buy 40 million vaccine doses either from Russia, China or from any other country that develops one, to vaccinate 20 million people initially.
A Palace spokesman said the Department of Finance will allocate about $400 million or roughly P20 billion to buy the vaccines.
It is all well and good, of course, to be prepared to acquire and use the vaccine, once a safe and effective one that has been thoroughly tested becomes available. On the other hand, the national strategy to combat COVID-19 can’t be seen as biding time or treading water until such a vaccine is here.
In this regard, the World Health Organization (WHO) offers some sound advice, saying countries should not simply wait for a coronavirus vaccine, but should focus on improving their COVID-19 response.
WHO Western Pacific Regional Director Dr. Takeshi Kasai suggests that countries should not overly rely on the development of a vaccine as there might not be enough supply during the initial production of the approved drug due to its high demand.
"Unless all countries are protected, no country is safe… We must continue to improve our response and not just hope for the vaccine," he said in a recent press briefing.
Here, several policies hinge on the arrival of a vaccine, including the return of face-to-face classes in schools and the lifting of lockdown restrictions.
On the bright side, Kasai says the country has significantly improved its testing capacity and expanding health care services by increasing hospital beds and ICU capacity.
The WHO official did not seem alarmed that the Philippines has logged almost 170,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases—the highest in Southeast Asia.
But none of this is cause for self congratulation. In fact, Kasai says, the country needs to watch closely the rise in critical patients. He also expressed concern over the continuous rise in the positivity rate, or the ratio of positive test results to the total number of tests. The latest data show the Philippines is as 12.1 percent, much lower than the WHO-recommended benchmark of 5 percent.
Certainly, there is a lot more work to be done while we await a vaccine.
