No, not the usual conspiracy theory about evil big pharma whose vaccines are killing people, but the more common conspiracy theory that the purchase of the Covid vaccine somehow was screwed up by someone, meaning the available vaccine that could have come here this January never got approved by officials so went elsewhere..
and surprise surprise! the Philippines instead will buy the (unproven) Chinese vaccines.
no, apparently it's not because the Sinovac vaccine is cheaper: it is slightly more expensive than the Pfizer vaccine
Background: There is a second wave outbreak here that will ruin Christmas, and the economy is already in freefall. So the vaccine is needed ASAP to protect people and get the economy restarted.
the Philippines was supposed to get one of the first shipments of the US Pfizer vaccine, starting in January. But somehow the deal fell through ...
“Thus, they could have secured the delivery of 10 million Pfizer vaccines as early as January next year, way ahead of Singapore, but for the indifference of Secretary Duque, who failed to work on the necessary documentary requirement namely, the Confidentiality Disclosure Agreement (CDA) as he should have done,” Lacson said.
Even Pfizer’s country representative had been following up on the CDA but to no avail, he added. Lacson then lamented how many lives will have been saved if the Pfizer vaccines were made available to Filipinos by January 2021.
Although Duque claimed ongoing talks between the pharmaceutical company and the government, Lacson said the Philippines already missed what would have been the early first salvo of deliveries of the vaccines.
so Singapore and others got the shipment
here's more discussion on twitter that openly hint at what everyone is thinking (but I can't write such conspiracy theories on this blog because I have no first hand knowledge of what's going on).
CNNPhil article notes:
Had the deal brokered by Philippine officials and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo remained on schedule, Pfizer would have been the first coronavirus vaccine to arrive in the country.
To date, only the vaccine produced by Pfizer and its partner BioNTech has secured emergency use authorization abroad, including from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Singapore.
The Duterte administration is still banking on Chinese-manufactured vaccine Sinovac to be the first vaccine to reach the Philippines. Roque on Tuesday said Sinovac is the only brand that can provide supply at the earliest time possible, which is in March or April 2021. The government is looking to secure up to 25 million doses of the Sinovac vaccine, even if the Chinese drug maker has not yet disclosed results of its phase 3 clinical trials to prove it is safe and effective.
(italics mine).
more HERE
Ironically, the anti vax types are playing into the Chinese strategy: They will exaggerate the "side effects" of the US and British vaccines to scare people away from them, while ignoring the lack of data on the problems with the Chinese vaccine, so anyone not sophisticated enough to see through the ruze will figure the Chinese vaccine is safer since the Chinese deny any problems, and of course, we all know China would never lie about such things.
(/sarcasm).
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