LGUs should not let people line up for COVID-19 vax in flooded areas – Duterte

Residents and workers stand in the rain and wade through a flood on Wednesday, July 21, 2021 —risking infection of waterborne diseases — just to get into San Andres Sports Complex in Manila, one of the COVID-19 vaccination hubs in the city. (File photo by RICHARD A. REYES / Philippine Daily Inquirer)

MANILA, Philippines — Local governments should not allow people to line up in flooded areas to get vaccinated against COVID-19, President Rodrigo Duterte said in his weekly taped briefing on Saturday.

“The problem is for the local governments to come up with a more sane process of vaccination [rather] than allowing people to queue as early as four o’clock in the morning and getting their shots at about nine o’clock in the morning. It seems to me, it’s not the way to vaccinate people,” Duterte said.

“People are exposed in the open, unprotected from the elements. They are waiting for… a chance to have a shot, for three to four hours standing there. There are floods now. They could have just looked for another auditorium or somewhere to do it. To me, it’s bullshit, actually when that’s what you’re doing to Filipino,” he added, speaking partly in Filipino.

Duterte was reacting to a photo shown by Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr., the national vaccine whenever. The photo showed residents wading through knee-high floods earlier this week to get vaccinated.

The president said he would question the mayor and the barangay chief, especially the latter since they were supposed to “marshal” the conduct of vaccinations.

Addressing Galvez, Duterte said: “I’d like to have a rule, sir, to encourage them to not to use that kind of setup.”

“It has to take into account the weather and the place where they should be waiting. That ought not to be repeated. Kawawa yung tao,” he went on.

Neither rain nor flooding stopped Manila residents from lining up to get a COVID-19 jab earlier this week at the San Andres Sports Complex, one of the vaccination sites in the city.

But experts warned people going out to get vaccinated against waterborne diseases, like leptospirosis.

As the monsoon rains persisted this Saturday, some LGUs in Metro Manila opted to suspend vaccinations for the safety of their residents and their vaccination teams.

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