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Can all vaccines be trusted?

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Twinkling with Ninfa R. Leonardia

One more day and it will be the feast of San Sebastian, patron said of Bacolod City and a big celebration at the Cathedral named after him. As far as I can remember, it was always a big day for the city, and especially for the Catholics who filled the Cathedral to overflowing for the High Mass in his honor. The same crowd also lined the city streets from end to end during the procession that followed in the afternoon. As students of La Consolacion, that was run by Augustinian nuns, we all joined it, dressed in our white  long-sleeved gala uniforms. Will that happen again this Wednesday?

***

Will Catholic schools allow their students to join that  much-anticipated fiesta and procession this time? That is, will the COVID pandemic allow them? Can they do it by observing the six-feet physical distancing? I think that if that is required, the latter part of the procession will not have left the Cathedral yet when the Sacristans leading it arrive. And I also think, people will still line the sidewalks  to watch and pray as it passes. I hope they will remember to pray, not only for their own families and needs, but also for the conquest of this COVID disease that has confounded even the most talented medical experts.

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I heard, though, that there seems to be some objections, or unwillingness on the part of China to allow experts from the World Health Organization, or WHO, to come to Wuhan, the city where COVID was born, to make a study on the virus that, in a few months, managed to spread worldwide and cause a lot of illness and deaths, even as the medical community is striving to find out its causes and how to counter it. Why is that so? By the way, China itself seems to be silent about the effects of the COVID on their country. Have they discovered a way to prevent or cure it?

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It is truly frightening, the way COVID has been hitting even  the most important personalities in the world. Among the latest victims  is Brazil president Bolsonaro and his people do not know how he got it. Perhaps he is  a very concerned leader who went around to check on his people who had been hit by the pandemic? I saw a report on TV the other day saying that Bacolod has 38 cases. If that is true, then let us all pray that those patients will recover, and there will be no more victims in our city and province, as well as in our country.

***

While Bacolod is celebrating its fiesta on Wednesday, the American Federal Bureau of Investigation is warning about the possibility of protests in 50 states on that day. Now, now, who could be instigating  such actions? How can the people fail to suspect the outgoing president who had also been targeted as the instigator of the outbreak at the Capitol recently? Several people have been identified and charged for that “uprising”, and some of them might sing as to who instigated it. I am afraid political peace will not reign in the United States, even after the change of command.

***

Meanwhile, what  vaccines are being introduced in the Philippines? A news report says that those from China and Russia are not reliable. So where will other countries look to for the perfect one? Has the WHO, or World Health Organization, picked which ones are to be trusted? It is alarming to think that people undergoing those “unreliable” ones would get a false sense of security that they are already protected and be careless about their movements and those they interact with. I think the best protection against infection is that simple advice of “Stay home”.

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The American media is making a great fuss over the fact that they now have a woman vice president in Kamala Harris. Somebody should tell them that, as far as  woman power is concerned, they are way behind the Philippines. So far we have had two women presidents already in Corazon “Cory” Aquino, and Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. They have only a “vice” for their leading American woman in politics, while we already had two, and both acquitted themselves very well, too!

***

Even if I don’t know the people involved, I was saddened by the news of that helicopter crash where seven people reportedly lost their lives. How could they have decided to travel by a whirly-bird with the weather so unpredictable these days? It must have been a very serious reason, but I hope it was not only for a tour or vacation. The weather has been so changeable lately and so many towns and cities have been dealing with floods. Silay City, I was told, also had some flooded areas, and people had to haul their first floor furniture up when floodwater began rushing into their homes. I guess Bacolod is on higher ground, because even if the water began to collect on the streets, they went down when the rains stopped. But isn’t it puzzling that we have all this rain in January when that used to happen in June and July?”*

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