By Joseph B.A. Marzan
Iloilo City Mayor Jerry Treñas on Sunday again vented his ire against Health Secretary Francisco Duque III over the latter’s pronouncements on Saturday shunning the suggestion to ban flights from the United Kingdom (UK) over the spread of a new strain of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) there.
This new COVID-19 strain is reported to be 70 percent more infectious than the first viral strain detected in Wuhan, China in 2019.
Its existence was first confirmed outside the UK’s capital, London, but has since spread to other countries such as Australia, Germany, Israel, Japan, Malaysia, and Singapore.
Several reports also indicated that Sabah had confirmed detection of the new strain, but as of this writing, the Malaysian government has not yet confirmed this.
During President Rodrigo Duterte’s address to the nation on Saturday evening, Duque said that flights will only be banned if the UK government confirms community transmission of the new strain.
In an interview with Aksyon Radyo on Sunday, Treñas expressed his “wariness and worry” over this new COVID-19 strain.
He assured Ilonggos that he has already passed on information to the COVID-19 Task Force on the new strain to be able to monitor the situation.
The mayor also hit Duque for having to wait for community transmission, calling the health secretary a “stupid animal”.
Treñas in June joined the chorus calling for Duque to resign from his post due to the spike of COVID-19 in the country despite the lockdowns obliged by the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-MEID).
This, despite the mayor voting in favor of Duque’s appointment in 2018 as a member of the bicameral Commission on Appointments when he was representative of Iloilo City’s lone congressional district.
The health secretary is the chairperson of the IATF-MEID, which was created in 2014 by then-President Benigno Aquino III via Executive Order No. 168.
“I am wary, at the same time, I am worried, because Secretary Duque is waiting for local transmission before he will stop the flights from the UK. I don’t know what kind of stupid animal this is, we call the secretary, but we really have to stop this. This is nonsense,” Treñas said in the radio interview.
He added that if Duque remained in his post, the country’s COVID-19 response “will fail”.
“All the other countries are already stopping flights going to their countries, [then] we have a Secretary of the DOH who is waiting for community transmission before he will stop the flights from the UK. While I have seen people here in Iloilo who can work together in the midst of this pandemic as long as we see a very clear direction, [but] here in the national [government] we have someone like him who continues to be Secretary of Health, it is not very remote to say that our COVID responders will all fail because of it,” the mayor added.
VACCINES
In the same interview, Treñas also hit Jaime Montoya, executive director of the Department of Science and Technology’s (DOST) Philippine Council for Health Research and Development (PCHRD), over his statements in the past week vouching for the COVID-19 vaccine made by Chinese company Sinovac.
Montoya on Thursday, Dec. 24, said that the Sinovac vaccine, which was pegged by Brazilian researchers to be 50 percent effective, was “acceptable” since it was the World Health Organization’s vaccine threshold.
The national government has already expressed its preference for Sinovac over vaccines made by other companies such as Pfizer and Moderna, which have been proven as cheaper and more effective.
The US, UK, and Canada have already acquired Pfizer vaccines for its citizens, and China is also reported to buy the same despite already having locally developed and produced vaccines.
The mayor also called Montoya “stupid” for echoing the preference for the Sinovac-made vaccines, expressing nervousness over the trust given to the said China-made vaccines.
“[One] thing we have to consider is that we have to look for a proper vaccine. How can we get a stupid guy from the DOST saying that 50 percent efficacy is very sufficient? I am very nervous if this is what they trust. We really have to talk to the medical profession. I would be okay with it so long as it goes through clinical trials, and eventually it would be accredited [by the WHO]. But there are already accredited vaccines, so why would we stick with the 50 percent efficacy?” said the mayor.
He did not state whether or not he preferred either the Pfizer or the Moderna vaccine, but said that if there would be a need to buy refrigerators to store the vaccines, he would ask the city government to do so.
He said he would hire more nurses and midwives to administer the vaccines should they arrive for “faster injections”, and said he would coordinate with the Iloilo provincial government for a uniform strategy on how to combat the virus.
Pfizer’s vaccine reportedly needs to be stored at -70 degrees Celsius, while the Moderna vaccine may be stored at just -20 degrees Celsius.
“If there are negative [temperatures] needed there, so be it. The city now has one [refrigerator] at the molecular laboratory, so we will purchase another two or four so we can have a -70 [degrees Celsius] storage,” he added.
He also raised the “challenge” of procuring COVID-19 vaccines, which are reported to be fully administered in the country only between 2022 and 2023.
Several local companies in the city have already pledged to buy vaccines for their workers, including the Florete Group, 21 Hotels, and Carlo’s Bakeshop.
The mayor also revealed that there is already a “priority list” for administration of vaccines by the city government, which include the following, in order:
(1) Iloilo City Hall employees;
(2) Senior Citizens;
(3) Frontliners who will not be administered to by the national government, including police officers and officers of the Bureau of Fire Protection, Bureau of Jail Management and Penology, and the Philippine Army; and
(4) Members of the media and barangay officials.
“Buying the vaccines is really by the national government, but the question there is in the mechanism. We now have 20 local companies who have stated that they will buy vaccines for their personnel. I think the ball is rolling, and I think this will snowball, and eventually all people can buy for their workers. The question really here is how they will be able to purchase these,” said the mayor.
Treñas was recently appointed as chairman of the newly-created Committee on Vaccine Availment of the League of Cities of the Philippines.
The Committee will meet today at 2 p.m. to meet on their strategies for securing vaccines for their constituents in cities.
They have also invited Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, Interior Secretary Eduardo Año, and National Task Force on COVID-19 Chief Implementer Carlito Galvez to join the meeting.
