GETTING THE JAB. Norhaisa Aragon, a staff nurse at the state-run Amai Pakpak Medical Center in Marawi City, holds a cotton swab where the Covid-19 vaccine was injected on her on Monday (March 8, 2021). She says that she is getting the vaccine to protect her parents, who have always doubted the existence of the coronavirus disease. (PNA photo by Divina Suson)
MARAWI CITY – Despite her parents being coronavirus disease (Covid-19) skeptics, a 32-year-old nurse at Amai Pakpak Medical Center here decided to be inoculated when the Sinovac jabs were made available among medical front-liners here on Monday.
Norhaisa Aragon, a registered nurse for five years, said she did it to protect her parents, although the latter have repeatedly expressed conspiracy theories about Covid-19 and the vaccines in general.
Aragon, who has been assigned at the triage center since the start of the pandemic last year, said her parents believe Covid-19 is a government-manufactured lie.
Because her job entails assessing and segregating patients if they are suspected as Covid-19 carriers, Aragon said was worried she might contract the virus one day.
"My parents are both diabetic, and they have low immune system. I don't want them to get infected if ever I could get the virus from my workplace. Getting vaccinated will help me," Aragon said.
Her parents are not alone in expressing skepticism over the virus.
Some residents, such as Jahari Saber, an ambulant vendor with space outside the Amai Pakpak Medical Center (APMC), said he has not seen anyone sick of the virus in the year since the pandemic broke out.
"For the longest time I have been selling here, I haven't seen anyone who suddenly fell over because they got Covid. What I saw is that they went directly to the hospital because of cough and fever," he said in vernacular.
The APMC management started administering Sinovac vaccines to 1,181 employees after receiving the Sinovac vaccines from the Department of Health over the weekend.
Dr. Shalimar Rakiin, APMC chief of hospital, said an overwhelming majority of their staff have expressed interest in receiving the vaccines.
"The workers have the right to refuse. But I am confident that when they see their colleagues being vaccinated, the number of employees willing to receive the jab will increase," Rakiin, who was the first to be vaccinated, said.
DOH has given APMC to finish the first dose of vaccination on Thursday, according to Rakiin. (PNA)
