Herd immunity in three years?

The government’s efforts to vaccinate a huge number of people seem to be falling short of the expectation that the country would attain herd immunity by December.

How could there be herd immunity – where 70 percent of the populace gets vaccinated – when vaccines for COVID-19 come in trickles from abroad?

Only 9.5 percent of the population has been fully vaccinated.

Presidential Adviser for Entrepreneurship and Go Negosyo founder Joey Concepcion’s statement is unrealistically optimistic, that there would be herd immunity in the country by year’s end or early next year.

“With aggressive rollouts, we’ll be able to vaccinate 50 percent of NCR (National Capital Region) population within the next month and hopefully achieve herd immunity by the end of the year or early next year,” Concepcion said.

With 9.5 percent of the population already fully vaccinated (given two doses), we’re still 60.5 percent away from herd immunity.

If we base the 9.5 percent vaccination rate in five months, the country will reach herd immunity (70 percent) in three years.

That is, if we stay at the current rate of the arrival of the vaccines in trickles from other countries.

In short, the country will reach herd immunity two or three years after the term of President Rodrigo “Digong” Duterte.

We’ll just have to grin and bear it.

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Here’s advice that some of my doctor friends give to people who are waiting to be vaccinated and are afraid of contracting the deadly disease: take ivermectin every two weeks as prophylaxis or prevention.

For those who always go out of their homes and might get exposed to COVID-19 carriers, one ivermectin dose every week is suggested.

And for those who have already developed mild or moderate cases of COVID-19, the dosage is one tablet or capsule every day for five days.

Doctors who made those recommendations are not ordinary medical practitioners; most of them are specialists in their respective fields.

One of them told me that his fellow doctor who works in a hospital in Metro Manila has prescribed ivermectin on the sly to COVID-19 patients, and they were cured.

But that doctor who prescribes ivermectin to his patients in an unnamed hospital does not want his identity revealed.

Ivermectin is an anti-parasitic medicine but has been secretly prescribed to COVID-19 patients by some doctors, who are scared of having their medical license revoked or being suspended if they get caught.

Some doctors, though, have been courageous enough to go public concerning the efficacy of ivermectin in fighting COVID-19.

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The country needs an inexpensive alternative to vaccines for COVID-19 for people waiting to be inoculated.

Ivermectin seems to answer that need. The price of ivermectin is estimated to be between P35 and P40 per tablet or capsule in the market.

Many doctors swear by the efficacy of ivermectin.

The legions of doctors who apparently have prescribed the anti-parasitic drug to their COVID-19 patients can’t be wrong.

But the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), apparently scared of Big Pharma for one reason or the other, bans the use of ivermectin.

I can understand where the FDA is coming from. Facebook suspended my ability to comment for 24 hours after I posted an article from a reputable newspaper in the US about the efficacy of ivermectin.

However, the FDA has authorized at least six hospitals to prescribe ivermectin to their patients under the guise of “compassionate” use,
These hospitals have not been identified.

The FDA has yet to divulge its findings on the efficacy of ivermectin in hospitals under study. We can safely say that those unnamed hospitals have become the FDA’s laboratories.

Why is the FDA taking so long to reveal its findings on the efficacy of ivermectin?

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Despite the threat of Interior Secretary Eduardo Año to arrest people who go out of their homes during the current lockdown, his warning seems to have fallen on deaf ears.

If you live in Metro Manila, it is easy to see that people go around as if there was no strict lockdown.

People have reached a saturation point of being scared of the virus, even of the supposedly deadly Delta variant.

There is a saying in Filipino, “Huwag mo akong takutin dahil matagal na akong takot (Don’t scare me because I’ve been scared for too long).”

Año, used to ordering subordinates around when he was still in the military, should realize civilians have a different mindset compared to military personnel.

If Año forces his military mindset on the civilian population, he’ll have a revolution on his hands.

People would rather die contracting the virus than die of starvation.

Año seems to give credence to the saying that military intelligence is an oxymoron, a combination of contradictory words; examples include “clearly confused” and “loyal opponent.”

In contrast, Gen. Guillermo Lorenzo “Guilor’ Eleazar, chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP), has not ordered police officers to immediately arrest citizens going out of their homes, but rather to appeal – repeat, appeal – to them to stay home so they will not be infected by the Delta variant, and not infect others if they are asymptomatic carriers.

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Olympics 2020 gold medalist Hidilyn Diaz, silver medalists Nesthy Petecio and Carlo Paalam and bronze medalist Eumir Marcial are being showered with financial rewards by a grateful nation.

However, Mansueto “Onyok” Velasco, who won a silver medal in the 1996 Olympics held in Atlanta, Georgia, has yet to receive his promised financial reward.

It’s high time Onyok got his just reward. Better late than never, as the saying goes.