Duterte slams officials over vaccination queues
MANILA: President Rodrigo Duterte castigated local officials for allowing long lines of residents especially in Metro Manila amid bad weather and floods so they could take their vaccine shots against the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
In his weekly taped address aired on radio and TV late on Saturday night, Duterte also used the same expletive in urging the same officials to be more “sane” in implementing procedures so as not to burden Filipinos willing to be vaccinated, especially during floods and heavy rains.
“People are exposed in the open, unprotected from the elements. They are waiting for a chance to have a COVID shot for three to four hours,” Duterte said. “There are floods now,” he added. “They could have just looked for another place where they could have the vaccine shots. But they are stuck with that place. To me, that’s bullshit. Actually, that’s what you are doing.”
The president apparently lost his temper when he was shown by Secretary Carlito Galvez, the vaccine czar, a photo of long lines of residents who complained they were forced to wait patiently amid bad weather and knee-deep floodwaters so that they could get their COVID-19 jabs in a crowded vaccination centre.
In this light, Duterte also told Metro Manila mayors to be more “sane” in easing the difficulties experienced by their constituents just so they could be inoculated. For instance, he said officials should not allow “walk-ins,” meaning people entering the vaccination centers although their names were not included in the list of residents scheduled to be inoculated for that particular day.
Heath experts have warned that allowing people to wait for hours to be vaccinated against the virus would expose them to other ailments. These include, they said, a water-borne ailment called leptospirosis by wading through floodwaters infected by wastes from rats and other animals.
At the same time, the president insisted that the country has enough supplies to cope with the increasing demand among filipinos to be vaccinated. He was apparently reacting to claims that lack of vaccine has been impeding the government’s nationwide inoculation programme against COVID-19, which was rolled out on March 1.