“Men under pressure are first dehumanized and only then demoralized, not the other way around. Organization and specialization, system, subsystem, and supersystem are the consequence, not the cause, of the totalitarian spirit.” —Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933–45
Vaccine Apartheid Policies Cracks! Authorities Backpedal on "No Vax, No Ride" Mandate!
That was fast!
From the Philippine News Agency, January 18: The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) on Tuesday said workers are exempted from the "no vaccination, no ride" policy. “They are exempted, our workers because they are rendering essential services. When you stop them, how will our businesses move? When there is no business there is no economy. Luckily, our workers are exempted,” Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III said in a Palace briefing. At the same time, Bello urged agencies implementing the policy to start a massive information drive to avoid confusion among the public.
Here is what we wrote last weekend.
Have authorities not realized that the unvaccinated population represents both producers/providers of services and consumers?
By throwing a significant minority of the population out of work or business, consumption will also slow. How can the economy recover?
To support the politically oppressed sector requires benefactors. Will the latter be consuming dispensable income instead of building savings? How will such loss of savings or capital decumulation help rebuild the economy?
With the loss of income, how will liabilities be repaid? Will this not affect the BSP lifeline-dependent balance sheets of the banking and financial institutions?
As seen elsewhere, will there be disruption in the supply network from labor shortages and dislocations? Will these aggravate the challenges in the labor segment hobbled by absences from COVID-19 infections or quarantines?
And if there are significant dislocations in output, will these not lead to higher prices, or even worst, supply shortages (empty grocery shelves)?
Why Vaccine Apartheid Policies Will Fail! January 16, 2022
The National Government walked back on the "No Vax, No Ride" mandate barely two days after its implementation!
Stunning!
Had authorities thought of this before? If so, why even bother to implement it?
This ex-post comment from the DoLE official signifies a reaction from a backlash from the private sector.
For instance, one media featured a video interview of a weeping woman, denied a ride to her workplace, even if she had a one-dose shot.
Further, an official said a group sought to acquire a TRO on this mandate.
Public transport caters to the low and the lower-middle-class sector, mainly for workplace transit. The so-called "exemption" represents not just the downscaling but a euphemism of a resounding defeat, the negation of the repressive and divisive directive.
This failure demonstrates the fatal conceit of politics.
The hope is that this controversy will fade away from the public's spotlight.
The arbitrary decree illustrates the political preference for short-term gratification and how authorities and the establishment see and analyze the socio-economic dimension: people are just statistics.
So they take this policy gambit predicated on fear, inconvenience, and harassment. If you are a hammer, everything is a nail.
And the establishment carries the same outlook: Have economic and financial experts not been mum on this?
Yet, these apartheid policies are tactical measures from the overall lockdown-and-vaccinate strategy constituting as health policy.
The war on the citizenry in various forms even before the pandemic (from the war on drugs, mining, oligarchy, Boracay, et al.) are essentially justifications for expanding the state or centralizing the economy. The current health policies are just an extension of it.
As Randolf Bourne poignantly wrote, "war is the health of the state."
And it is interesting to see how the mainstream fails to comprehend that socialism (even in its various forms) is antithetic to the market economy.
On the account of the infection rates understated by the DoH
As a side note, official data on COVID-19 cases depend on the people who took tests and reported to authorities.
Given the availability of antigen home kits, those who thought they only had flu, or those who refuse to test, the DoH may have been understating actual infection rates.
Well, first, this estimate.
From the Inquirer, January 17: The independent analytics group OCTA Research on Sunday estimated that Metro Manila’s actual COVID-19 cases could be six to 15 times higher than the official numbers being reported by the Department of Health (DOH) in its daily case bulletins. OCTA Research fellow Guido David said they reached this estimate based on the random rapid tests conducted by the Department of Transportation on railway passengers on Jan. 12 and Jan. 13 wherein 12.4 percent of those tested were positive for the virus. Assuming Metro Manila’s population of 14 million, this meant an estimated prevalence range of infection of 7.4 to 17.4 percent (based on a margin of error of plus or minus 5), which David said could mean that about 1.04 million to 2.44 million people in Metro Manila were infected as of Jan. 13.
Second, the confession.
From the GMA News, January 18: The number of COVID-19 infections in the country is "understated" despite the reported high number of cases each day, an official from the Department of Health (DOH) said Tuesday…"Actually yes and even outside our country, it is underreported for several reasons. Number one, kapag hindi kayo nagpa-RT-PCR or hindi kayo na-antigen, hindi kayo masasama sa bilang (If you do not have yourselves tested via RT-PCR or antigen test, you will not be included in the data)," DOH Epidemiology Bureau director Dr. Alethea de Guzman responded. "But there are also those who are asymptomatic, unknowingly infected na hindi natin nade-detect kaya hindi rin po sila nabibilang doon sa total confirmed cases natin (There are those who are unknowingly infected, they are not detected so they are not included in our total confirmed cases),” she added.
Again from last week,
The implication is that spiking cases may translate to a widespread diffusion of natural immunity in the population better than vaccines.
But, early treatment and natural immunity have barely been part of the lockdown-vaccinate loop strategy.
Again, health policies represent one aspect of the overall design incorporating the general thrust to politicize via centralization the socio-economic sphere.
As concluded last week,
But ultimately, the boomerang from these measures will matter most, in the fullness of time.
Yours in liberty,
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