I’m going to do something the Philippine media, the public and especially the country’s leadership have been wholly unwilling to do in the past few days, and apply some skepticism to the surprise announcement that an effective vaccine against the novel coronavirus has been developed by Russia and will shortly be provided in quantity on the basis of no-strings-attached largesse.
Most of us learned of the Russian vaccine during Monday’s episode of “Late Night with Rody Duterte,” wherein the President, in an announcement that revealed more about his own sense of defeat in the fight against the novel coronavirus pandemic than it did about current medical developments, said a vaccine created by Russian scientists would be provided, free of charge, to the Philippines by September or October. He also said that, with a little forbearance on God’s part, this whole annoying crisis could be a thing of the past by Christmas.