CEBU CITY—Lapu-Lapu City held a simulation of vaccine injection with the city’s mayor pretending to get injected with a vaccine that was actually just a placebo, or a substance made to look like the actual vaccine but is actually just water which sometimes contains salt, sugar or starch.
Mayor Junard Chan went public with the process, including actual pricking by a syringe in his arm, raising questions about whether he, indeed, received a vaccine dose, expected to be CoronaVac, ahead of health care workers who are supposedly on top of the list of priorities.
Dr. Mary Jean Loreche, Department of Health (DOH) Central Visayas spokesperson, said the mayor was given a saline solution, a kind of placebo, which was not recommended for simulation exercises.
“We don’t actually do that,” Loreche said. “But the mayor wanted to show the people that it’s okay,” she said.
Loreche, in a text message, said Chan agreed to have a saline solution injected into his arm.
Chan announced on Facebook Live that he would be back on March 31 for a second dose, which his public information office shortly clarified to be part of the simulation.
The entire make-believe act took 45 minutes.
Loreche said there had been no CoronaVac, vaccines created by Chinese firm Sinovac, delivered to local governments yet. On Tuesday, at least 12,000 CoronaVac doses donated by China had been delivered to Davao City, President Duterte’s hometown.
Ceremonies for the rollout of the real vaccination program would be on Thursday (March 4) at the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center.