Expiring Vaccines, Former Expiry Date Unreadable. The WHO Intervention Ladder for Encouraging Vaccine Uptake: Persuasion, Nudges, Incentives, Disincentives, Compulsion. Masking Lifted with Conditions

13 September 2022

Expiring Vaccines; There Can Be No expiry if There are No Readable Dates!

The DOH continues to raise its concerns with regards to the more than 20 million doses of covid-19 vaccines which have expired.

Expiring vaccines will not be an issue if the manufacturer has granted extensions on expiry dates. DOH’s OIC Vergeire has confirmed that there is no use of expired vaccines for booster dosing, explaining also that vaccines which have had their expiry date extended go through a "stability study". Clearly, “extension” is not the same as “expiry”! Details of such stability study have been requested from DOH under FOI, but no response has been received to date.

Does the expiry date become irrelevant if it cannot be read? Below is a screen shot of a post from the Capiz Provincial Office FB page, which will surely soon disappear, as attention is drawn, showing refrigerated boxes of vaccines with labels marked “former expiry date unreadable”. What does that mean? They were delivered / donated / procured with expiry dates already obscured? The vaccine cannot expire if there is no legible date! Problem solved! There should be a formal inquiry triggered by this EXPOSE!

Strategies to Improve Vaccine Uptake

Given the potential waste of so many expired vaccines, the DOH is eager to ensure that vaccines go into arms instead of landfills.

The WHO generously provides toolkits training materials to help countries to deliver and increase covid-19 vaccine acceptance, demand, and uptakes.

Achieving high uptake of COVID-19 vaccines will require effective planning, coordination, and implementation of a range of strategies. To assist, this toolkit offers a set of practical guidance, training and information resources that are intended to support programmes, partners, health workers, civil society organizations, and other stakeholders. 

The toolkit includes 10 Steps to Community Readiness. They are providing strategies to help communities believe that they are involved in and have ownership over the delivery of what (the Covid-19 Vaccines) the WHO want them to deliver!

Data for Actions: Achieving High Uptake of Covid-19 Vaccines.

The Philippines DOH are clearly following the playbook set out for them by WHO. We are currently at the stage where the DOH Brings the vaccines to the people, wherever they are. As reported in BusinessWorld:

What about Filipino Sovereignty over their own health decisions and polices? What about bodily autonomy and free choice in the decision to take a product?

The following table, understood to be from Philippines DOH training materials, is the Intervention Ladder for Vaccine Demand Generation of Dr. Alberto Giubini, as described in his book The Ethics of Vaccination.

One of Dr. Giubini’s key premises is that vaccination is a collective moral responsibility, in order to generate herd immunity; refusal by eligible persons should be illegal.

Vergeire has stated that the DOH sees no need to enforce vaccine mandates (DOH can’t enforce actual mandates under the current Philippines constitution), because they are implementing nudges to encourage vaccine uptake.

Indeed, the DOH has moved beyond persuasion though relentless marketing, beyond nudges and incentives and are now working on disincentives to encourage the unvaccinated and undervaccinated to accept the Covid-19 Vaccines and boosters.

During the first 100 days of Marcos, Pinaslakas, programme health workers, often accompanied by police and government officials, are taking the vaccines to the people in their schools, markets, malls, transport terminals and places of worship. Telling people they must accept the vaccines and boosters in order to keep accessing services, working, shopping, travelling. Line people up and make them think they have no choice (yes, I have been told that this is literally happening in some provincial workplaces). Make it easier and less stressful to give in than to say no! Regardless of the consequences.

I hear many stories of injuries and sudden deaths in my circles, all somehow temporally coincidental to being injected, and in people who were fine prior to that injection! Last night, it was a prayer request for the family of a recently injected to attend school 13 year-old girl who went to bed and just didn’t wake up!

13th September 2022, The First Day of Optional Masking

Masking outdoors and in ventilated spaces is now optional, though it is strongly recommended to be retained for the unvaccinated and immunocompromised!

Will masking become the next visible stigma? Only the unvaccinated and the sick wear masks?

Walking to work this morning, most of the people I passed were still fully masked. My homeowners condocorp advised residents that we must continue to wear masks within our community’s public spaces until they study the implementing rules and issue new guidelines for us!

The President’s Team has clearly studied Giubini and the ‘Wall of Immunity’, generation of which continues to be strongly marketed. Presidential Press Secretary Angeles said of the President’s agreement to relax masking:

“He had imposed a condition and one of that is the establishment of the wall of immunity. We’re happy to announce that we are six percent away from the wall of immunity, that’s why we are confident (to issue this policy) for face masks,”

The EO 3 states that 72 million individuals or 93 percent of the 72 million target population fully vaccinated against COVID-19, and 18 million or 23 percent of the target population are boosted as of September 6, 2022.

The Merry Go Round Continues!