Bacolod’s vaccine roll-out

By Modesto P. Sa-onoy

The Bacolod City government has been proclaiming its success in the vaccination campaign against the virus. The media apparatus of Mayor Evelio Leonardia makes it a point to daily praise this achievement and even use the supposed top performance as a political tool against the campaign of the provincial government.

However, the attack against the provincial government is directed not to the governor, Eugenio “Bong” Lacson but his consultant, former 3rd District Congressman Alfredo Benitez who is a highly possible challenger of Leonardia in next year’s election.

The criticism is rather crude because a consultant does not execute, he only gives advice when asked. In some cases, a consultant may propose but the executive decides. So it does not look well for Leonardia’s media to attribute the alleged poor performance of the provincial government to Benitez.

But that is how the Bacolod political scenario is politicized. The city can stand on its own feet without having to disparage others whose alleged lack of performance is incomparable considering the wide variation in circumstances.

But it is not really all well with the vaccination campaign of Bacolod. There has been no independent evaluation of its operation, however, certain things do indicate problems.

The city government reportedly asked the national government to allocate more coronavirus vaccines as the city is being pummelled by a surge in COVID-19 cases. “We are being hit hard by this new wave of COVID-19 infections,” said Leonardia.

He did not present statistical data to show this “surge” and the condition of the city remains the same for months. Where’s the surge?

This is a dangerous description because if indeed there is a flood of infections the city should have been placed into a more restrictive state with everything locked down, longer curfew hours, checkpoints, closures of all businesses and even churches.

But we see nothing of the kind. In fact, there is more relaxation of movements and gatherings.

I think the word, “surge” is too much except when it was used to force the national government to give Bacolod priority in the allocation of the vaccines.

It is interesting, however, because prior to the arrival of the vaccines, Leonardia’s mouthpieces were boasting the Bacolod will not be dependent on others for its supplies. Bacolod has money prepared for Altra-Zeneca.

The recent news also say that the Bacolod City government “was among the very first local governments in the country to secure 650,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines but these would not be delivered until the third quarter of 2021.”

We can agree with his statement that “ramping (sic) up our vaccination program will be critical to saving lives and restoring economic activity in our city,” said Leonardia in a letter dated May 5 to vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr.

The use of the critical word “surge” is probably a reaction to the statement of Galvez that the national government will give priority to the vaccination program in Metro Manila and other key urban areas hit hardest by the pandemic.

By using the term “surge”, Leonardia wanted to include Bacolod City among those “hardest hit”. Heavens forbid!

There is no way to independently verify the claim of the Bacolod City Health Office that it had recorded “an alarming increase of 422 percent in the number of COVID-19 cases in Bacolod from only 271 cases in March to 1,415 in April.” That is as fuzzy a claim as it can be.

Although he claimed Bacolod is ahead of others, there is a “continued rise in cases, increases in hospitalizations and deaths. Hospitals and intensive care units are now nearing their full capacity and staff shortages have been reported.”

He has others to blame “While we have already started to roll out our vaccination program, our allocation from the national government comes in trickles.”

As of last week, Bacolod has received 19,160 vaccine doses from the national government and has inoculated only 11,993 out of 424,992 residents eligible for vaccination, and so “we are experiencing a sharp increase in new cases and the threat of even faster spread. We need to accelerate the pace of vaccinations to move through the priority groups more quickly.”

If Bacolod is ahead, why is there a surge?