By Robert B. Roque, Jr.
So much for anticipating bivalent vaccines entering the mix of the Department of Health (DOH)’s rollout to combat COVID-19 in the country.
When these were developed as boosters that target both the original strain of the virus that causes COVID-19 and the newer Omicron subvariants that were vaccine-resistant, many of us looked forward to this next-level protection.
The US Center for Disease Control (CDC) said the effectiveness of this updated bivalent vaccine in preventing COVID-associated hospitalization was now the gold standard. In addition, the US National Institutes of Health reported real-world results of its use and effective protection as 37 percent higher than the old doses.
And while our government had not yet sourced out funds to initiate orders of this “wonder dose” amid a mass expiration of hundreds of millions worth of first-batch COVID-19 vaccines, there was a promise that we’d get our hands on a donation of 1 million doses of the bivalent vaccine in the first quarter of 2023, courtesy of the COVAX facility.
Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire, officer-in-charge of the DOH, has been nearly apologetic each time the question comes up. After all, how can it not be entirely her fault when all her department has to do is accept the donation and roll it out, right?
Well, not that simple. First, our valedictorian in Malacanang has lifted the state of calamity, and with that, Republic Act No. 11525, the COVID-19 Vaccination Law, has ceased to exist. So, we are now faced with that challenge wherein there would be no basis for the government to sign the agreement accompanying the donation through COVAX.
There must be a legal basis for which the country accepts the donation and commence the administration of these bivalent booster shots under a pandemic emergency in which the manufacturers of these “experimental vials” are immune from class action or suit. These conditions do not exist anymore.
What’s even more sloppy is how this Junior administration handles it. Imagine, the Office of the President (specifically, the Office of the Deputy Executive Secretary for Legal Affairs), the Department of Justice (DOJ), and the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) have been bumping heads together since early February to carve out a legal basis to accept the donation agreement, and to this day, they’re still bumping their heads.
Today, we’re on the 11th day of the Quarter 2 of 2023. As I’ve said, all anticipation for these bivalent vaccines to arrive in the first quarter has gone. As for hope we’ll ever see this donation in this second quarter, Vergeire and the would-be beneficiaries of these doses — our medical frontliners and our elderly — could only keep their fingers crossed.
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