Traffic could be rerouted to speed up vaccine delivery; 'holiday' not needed, says Nograles

The government pandemic task force is not inclined to declare a special holiday in Metro Manila just to ensure an unimpeded delivery of coronavirus vaccine supplies for now.

Declaring a holiday for the vaccine transport might only hurt industries and workers especially the daily wage earners, according to Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles. Instead of a holiday declaration, Nograles proposed the establishment of a traffic rerouting scheme to prevent any transport delay of the vaccine supplies upon arrival in the country.

The first batch of coronavirus vaccines is expected to be delivered this month. The government has stepped up preparations for the vaccine rollout, from customs clearance, transport, storage, and distribution of the supplies to the beneficiaries.

"Kung rota lang naman pagdadaanan ng vaccines mula sa airport papunta sa cold storage, pwede naman siguro gumawa ng routing scheme or rerouting scheme sa pagdadaanan ng kalsada (If we're talking about the route of the vaccines from the airport to the cold storage facility, a routing scheme or rerouting scheme can be implemented in the roads that will be used) so it does not necessarily entail a holiday," Nograles said over state television Wednesday, Feb. 10 when asked about a possible holiday in the capital region.

"'Yung holiday kasi may repercussions din 'yan sa employment, labor sector pati 'yung ating business sector kaya as much as possible iniiwasan natin hangga't kinakailangan na mag-declare ng holiday kasi maraming mga 'no-work, no-pay' o di kaya sayang naman ang araw ng pagtatraabaho ng ating manggagawa at yung negosyo ng ating mga negosyante  (A holiday has repercussions to employment, labor sector and our business sector so as much as possible we avoid it until is really to declare holiday. Many are employed in no work, no pay status. A working day of our workers and businessmen might be wasted)," he said.

Last Tuesday, Feb. 9, authorities conducted a simulation exercise for the arrival of the vaccines at the Manila airport to their transport to the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) cold storage facility. The country's initial supply of 117,000 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines is part of the COVAX facility, a global scheme for equitable vaccine access.

Vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. said there was no major hiccup in the rehearsal but still he wanted "to perfect our time-and-motion." The simulation exercise took only 50 minutes, well within the target of 120 minutes.

Nograles currently serves co-chair of the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF), the government's policy-making body on the pandemic response. The task force is chaired by Health Secretary Francisco Duque III.