COVID survivor mayor urges people to lineup for vaccines

If there are people who should be refusing to take the coronavirus-disease (COVID-19) vaccine, then these should be those who have much to lose.

But for Catigbian Mayor Elizabeth Mandin-Pace, it was a decision she learned the hard way.

Well-off, secured and highly respected in the community, Mandin-Pace has worked hard enough to afford a comfortable life, one she capped in service to Catigbianons.

When COVID hit Bohol, Catigbian was initially safe, being some thirty kilometers away from Tagbilaran City, where people converge in air-conditioned malls and hardly implementing physical distancing.

But fate would have it his way.

For the mayor, when COVID got them, it left a sore memory.

“My mother died of COVID, and my father is a victim of COVID, she sadly shared over the weekly Kapihan sa PIA.

In a province where most COVID survivors who carry the stigma of the disease would rather be mum about their brushes of death, it was different for the first lady mayor of the agricultural town of Catigbian.

“Dili nako ikauwaw nga nga ako survivor ko sa COVID. Daku kaayo ang akong pasalamat sa Ginoo nga gitagaan pa ko og chance ang akong kinabuhi,” she said.

“I wont be ashamed to say that I am a Covid survivor. I am so grateful to God who gave me another chance in my life.”

In Bohol, amidst leaked information that many are still refusing to get the COVID jabs, 69 people have died, a year and three months after the country scrambled to lock its boundaries to contain and isolate the virus.

The mayor added that she stayed in the hospital for two weeks, she had COVID which manifested in severe pneumonia.

“It was the first time in my life that I was in such a situation, I was [given a] 50-50 [chance in life] I had to use the ventilator, she shared.

The mayor who openly admitted she thought she would never come out of it alive, had difficulty breathing.

“I thought I would never survive,” she said, laying her resolve to talk about the experience to urge people to take to the necessary precautions.

At the Kapihan which Catigbian used to announce their 17th Katigbawan Festival, a traditionally pompous three day event complete with enticing events that could be virus super spreaders, Mandin-Pace told listeners, this year’s foundation day activities are mostly virtual.

Along this line, she urged Catigbianons and even the listeners to continue to pray so the cases in Bohol and in Catigbian can finally go down.

Let us continue to pray that God continues to guides us to survive this pandemic.

Moreover, she called on the people to heed the call from the experts who intend to secure the people from the fatal effects of the virus.

(“Walay lain nga solusyon niining sakit nga COVID kun dili magpabakuna gayud kita. Gihangyo mo naku sa kinasingkasing kay aron mubalik na kita sa new normal ug aron muabtik ug balik ang atong panginabuhian.")

There is no other solution from COVID, but vaccination. I earnestly urge you, so we can go back to the new normal and the economy rebounds, she urged.

The mayor’s story, the first admission from a local official, has been her heaviest argument to convince people to get to the vaccine centers and be inoculated.

As to the raised health concerns, Bohol InterAgency task Force for COVID, Dr Cesar Tomas Lopez has this to say:

“We have vaccinated over 72,000 since we started. I have not heard or received any reports about adverse effects, Dr. Lopez cited BIATF results.

These vaccines, are issued Emergency Use Authority by countries where the vaccines are used and the tests proved promising results after initial trials and clinical tests.

Initial trials come after the vaccines successfully pass clinical tests and proponents can prove through laboratory journals that the vaccine is effective and its benefits outweigh the ill-effects it may give to some people, according to the World Health Organization experts.

Still, the information that sifted through, maybe owing to a world so inclined to sensationalism, dealt on the handful of adverse side effects, while relegating the millions of uneventful vaccinations to the sidelines, noted development communicators over the proliferation of misinformation and irresponsible sharing of unverified vaccine information.

Three months after Bohol started rolling out the vaccination in line with the National Vaccination Program, vaccination teams are now seeing vaccine centers getting less and less people coming, even when those who should come are those in the master list as priority groups, vaccine teams shared.

“People are simply refusing to come out or are deferring from the jabs for fear of what would happen to them,” a nurse at the vaccination center in the city revealed.

Cortes Mayor Lynn Iven Lim, in an aired talk show, said he could not understand why people would fear ghosts and refuse to go out at night when nobody has been reported eaten by ghosts. When COVID has clearly shown many have died from it, why would many people not fear it?, he asked.

Mayor Lim had his first shot of the vaccines a week ago. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol)