EDITORIAL - A hard truth slap

Those who are banking on a vaccine as the only cure-all for the pandemic problem are about to get a hard slap in the face with the truth. According to vaccine czar Carlito Galvez, it will take about three to five years to vaccinate between 60 to 70 million Filipinos.

"More or less 60 to 70 million, we will do this in a 3- to 5-year period," Galvez was quoted as saying in a virtual press briefing last Wednesday.

That is only up to 70 million in a country with a population of 109 million and growing.

There are those who are banking on herd immunity as the best way to get rid the virus. Well, that still requires a majority of people to be immune from the virus which, again, will take three up to five years.

We cannot blame the government for this situation. It is doing everything it can with everything it has. We just aren’t as rich in influence or resources as other countries are. We cannot make demands to get the vaccines first, and that is what it is.

Let’s say we somehow manage to get some vaccines early, thanks to friends in powerful countries, rolling them out to those who need them the most will still be easier said than done. There will be the logistical challenges of quickly setting up a vaccine distribution chain. That chain will require a cold storage system in many areas of the country, it will also require the services of many personnel.

It’s not even a guarantee that the common person will get it as it has been prioritized for the especially vulnerable and those at the frontline of this medical emergency.

So what does this mean? It means from our end we must do everything to stop the spread of the virus on our own. We cannot wait for the vaccine --which may take years to arrive for most of us-- to solve our problem.