Target: Zero waste

When we put our minds to it, efficiency is possible.

Watching the simulations of the series of actions planned upon arrival in the country of the initial batch of COVID vaccines (slightly delayed, but still within the month), it looks like the inoculation rollout will have minimal glitches.

It helps that the initial batch will be only 117,000 doses. The volume will allow the testing of vaccination capabilities. It also makes documentation of the targeted recipients easier, with the priority list strictly followed and no one jumping the line.

And it helps that it looks like the first doses – delivered under the aegis of the World Health Organization’s COVAX Facility – will be from US firms Pfizer and Moderna (some reports say there will be AstraZeneca-Oxford jabs as well). In this case, the government’s problem will not be vaccine hesitancy but jumping the inoculation queue. Those 117,000 shots will be used up in the blink of an eye.

Another possible problem will be the proliferation of fake vaccines, once the genuine articles arrive. Any shots that aren’t part of the national government’s centralized procurement could be fake – mere placebos, or worse.

Fortunately, the victims of such scams will likely be those who want to jump ahead of the line. So if they do get their hands on fake jabs, they fully deserve to suffer the consequences.

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Vaccine hesitancy among Filipinos – as informal consultations and surveys have shown – is directed mainly at vaccines made in China. This is where it is suggested that top government officials lead by example and get the shots in public.

Since the announcement of the availability of 44 million doses under the COVAX Facility, however, the government’s interest in the Chinese vaccines seems to have flagged somewhat.

There’s still that donation of 500,000 CoronaVac doses from Beijing, developed by private Chinese pharma Sinovac. We can’t be ungrateful and let vaccine hesitancy lead to the waste of half a million precious doses. But who will accept the Chinese vaccines, when the Western ones are already being rolled out here?

Not surprisingly, the answer is, give the shots to members of the military and police. The donation is enough for 250,000 soldiers and cops, at two doses each. Acceptance of the Sinovac shot could turn into a test of loyalty to the President and commander-in-chief, who looks like he’s getting the Pfizer jab.

That leaves the duty of leading by example (by getting the Sinovac shots in public) to the chiefs of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and Philippine National Police.

To ensure no wastage, the AFP and PNP should register its members who are willing to get the Sinovac shots, before the donated vaccines arrive. Who knows, if reliable tests show that the vaccine in fact works well, with high efficacy and no severely adverse side effects, the AFP and PNP vaccination could turn into an effective endorsement of China-made vaccines.

But at this point, thanks largely to the secrecy surrounding the development of the vaccines, plus their smuggling into the Philippines and hush-hush use by the Presidential Security Group (PSG) in September last year, Filipinos’ distrust of jabs made in China is as deep as ever.

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President Duterte had blabbed that the vaccine used in September was the one made by Chinese state-owned Sinopharm. To this day we don’t know who smuggled the vaccines and who got them; omerta is prized in this administration. But they must have worked well; yesterday Malacañang announced that the PSG was procuring 10,000 Sinopharm doses, after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the shots for compassionate use.

The PNP, AFP and PSG members who will accept the Chinese jabs aren’t considered to be jumping the vaccination line. Instead they are seen as guinea pigs who can’t afford to be choosy.

The 44 million doses under COVAX will need to be augmented with about 90 million more to cover at least 70 percent of our population for herd immunity.

Faced with resistance to Chinese vaccines, we may turn to the Russians.

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The Russian jab, Sputnik V, received a major confidence boost with the publication of a peer-reviewed study in the respected medical journal The Lancet, which reported that the vaccine developed by Gamaleya Research Institute in Moscow had a 91.6 percent efficacy against COVID.

Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, the Russian Direct Investment Fund, which financed the Sputnik V project, is proud to report that the vaccine uses the long-tested conventional methodology in vaccine development rather than the untested messenger RNA technology, which allowed Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca to roll out their jabs in record time.

Sputnik V also requires only regular refrigeration temperature for storage, Dmitriev told us Tuesday night on “The Chiefs” on Cignal TV’s OneNews. Russia also says the vaccine provides long-term immunity, although this can be established with certainty only after the passage of time.

The Russians have filed for emergency use authorization for Sputnik V from the Philippines’ FDA. Recent reports said the FDA is still waiting for the submission of certain documents. Dmitriev, however, told us that as far as they are concerned, all the necessary documents have already been submitted and are in order.

He says Russia is capable of large-scale production of Sputnik V, which will cost only about half the price of Western vaccines. I’m not sure if he was referring to the no-profit, no-loss price of P500 we’re paying for the UK’s AstraZeneca-Oxford jab.

Procuring from different sources, we might yet have a COVID-free, merry Christmas 2021, and a truly happy New Year in 2022. That is if the vaccine rollout is efficient, and no jab is wasted.