A COVID-19 Vaccine Will Not End The Crisis, Says Health Expert

• A health expert from the Philippines said that having a COVID-19 will not “ensure the elimination of risks” in the future.
• The country’s officials and health workers are currently overwhelmed with the increasing number of patients, with thousands of new coronavirus cases being reported each day.

As many countries continue to await for the much-needed vaccine against the dreaded coronavirus, one health expert from the Philippines has one dire warning: finally having one may not guarantee that the pandemic will end anytime soon.

Vicente Belizario, dean of the University of the Philippines College of Public Health, recently spoke about this topic during an online forum.

According to Belizario, he believes that a vaccine “will not ensure elimination of risk of COVID-19 in the near future.”

He added that local government leaders should work closely with the public, the policy makers and the private sector in order to prevent further spread of the disease.

“If only the parties tasked to respond and act on major public health concerns like COVID do their job … If these various sectors did their respective roles, we will be closer and closer to control and prevention of COVID,” pointed out Belizario.

Similarly, it can be remembered that World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has previously declared that there will be “no return to the old in the foreseeable future.” He also added that while COVID-19 remains as our main concern, the “actions of many governments and people do not reflect this.”

Belizario’s comments follow after the Philippines has reported thousands of new confirmed cases, at one point even recording more than 6,000 cases in a single day.

Health workers have recently pleaded a 2-week community quarantine in Metro Manila and nearby areas in the hopes of minimizing the number of local transmissions as hospitals continue to get overwhelmed by the rising number of patients.

As of this writing, the Philippines has over 116,000 confirmed COVID-19 CASES with more than 2,000 deaths and 66,000 recoveries.