BY MATÉ ESPINA
TYPHOON “Auring” is yet to make landfall but as of yesterday morning, it has brought intense winds in Negros Occidental and is expected to hit the northern part of the province by Sunday.
Provincial Disaster chair, Zaephard Caelian said that the storm’s path indicates it will initially pass through central Negros but now, it may likely hit north instead. He added that they may raise the alert level to “blue” if the storm intensifies further.
Local government units in its path are now forewarned especially since this is also the area that had been badly hit by flooding in the past weeks. Negros Occidental Gov. Bong Lacson asked the public to pray that the province will be spared from harm and northern Negros definitely need a lot of prayers with the damage they’ve had in both agriculture and livestock since the start of this year.
Toboso Mayor Richard Jaojoco said that as early as Thursday, they have been preparing food packs that will be distributed today to residents that were identified to be in the path of the storm.
In Bacolod City, the local disaster group is also preparing for Auring and has set up a command center at the annex building of the Bacolod Government Center.
Meanwhile, the fight against COVID-19 continues and though we have gone into low double digit figures since the start of the year, there are still many active cases in both the province and Bacolod City.
Last week alone, there were 20 new cases recorded among arrivals, more than half of which via incoming sea travel with only six air travellers.
Caelian though assured that they were able to contain these cases since all arrivals in the province go through the quarantine facilities and tested before they are allowed to go home to their respective localities once their results are in.
“This allows us to contain the positives and save government resources that would otherwise be spent on contact tracing and testing other people,” he said.
Of course, until mass vaccination is available, we have to continue to be on our toes and practice minimum health protocols.
So far, if we follow the national news, there is very little hope that the general public may soon have a chance to avail the necessary vaccines especially with the recent pull out of Astra Zeneca and Moderna from the market since they cannot anymore take on additional orders.
Just recently, Bacolod Mayor Bing Leonardia who chairs the League of Cities in the Philippines, thanked the president for allowing cities to make advance payments for the procurement of the vaccines. I hope the LGUs will move faster than the national government who seem to be taking its sweet time to secure vaccine contracts.
Bacolod ordered 650,000 doses of vaccines and are preparing the 20 percent downpayment for it but it is not clear whether these have been pre-ordered or came before Astra Zeneca’s announcement that they will not anymore entertain order request.
They are also fast-tracking the procurement of cold storage containers while Mayor Bing wants to expedite the construction of a cold room for the vaccines. Of course this remains to be seen because while the city is fast in undertaking construction, it is so slow in implementing the program.
Just take the new 32-bed quarantine facility that was inaugurated third quarter of last year but are not being used because the city probably forgot that to operate such needs power and water connection which they missed out on doing in the six months the facility was being constructed.
The provincial government on the other hand are preparing to purchase three million doses of vaccines for 1.5 million residents. The provincial health office is also urging LGUs to start purchasing biomedical refrigerators saying these will not go to waste as these can be used to store other vaccines as well.
I envy seeing other nations, including those perceived to be even less than us in terms of resources, already starting their mass vaccinations. Most of my friends in the US wore their vaccination accomplishment as a badge of honor and I am personally jealous.
A journalist friend posted this on his social media page – Myanmar, gripped by a coup, and Bangladesh, whose per capita is just half than ours, have both begun COVID-19 vaccinations. But in the Philippines, all we have are endless simulations” of mass vaccination.
Now, the vaccine team is bent on pointing the blame on the Food and Drug Administration for the delay even though the national government already admitted that they smuggled in vaccines from China to inoculate some members of the police force. Oh well. Only in the Philippines!/PN
