Don't give up, the Department of Health was told on its goal of immunizing 90 million by the end of President Duterte's term on June 30.
Senior Citizen Partylist Rep. Rodolfo Ordanes asked the government not to give up about meeting its goal of having 90 million Filipinos fully vaccinated by June 30.
It seems DOH is giving up on vaccinating 90 million Filipino by June 30. I have not, Ordanes declared.
Let us understand and consider the pandemic fatigue millions are going through. It is important to make compliance easy, less hassle, he said.
Vaccine mandates can be done for graduation rites, recognition rites, oathtaking ceremonies, college and senior high school campus reopening and enrolment. That would be about 7 million people right there, Ordanes stressed.
Vaccine mandates for all government employees and firms doing government contracts. That's a few million more people.
All 4Ps and social pension beneficiaries for a few million more people.
All vendors at public markets for hundreds of thousands additional people to vax.
Make exceptions few and under limited conditions, he concluded.
Last Monday, the National Vaccine Operations Center said the 90 million fully- vaccinated Filipinos target by June 30 is "unlikely" to be achieved.
At a public briefing, NVOC head and DoH Undersecretary Myrna Cabotaje said they may not be able to meet this goal by the end of the President's term. "It's difficult we are first to admit that."
Instead they are now focusing on meeting the initial goal of immunizing 77 million Filipinos, which will require 900,000 jabs per day. As of April 18, a total of 67 million have been fully- inoculated while only 12.7 million got booster shots.
“We are now on the last mile (of vaccination). It’s really hard to cover one-third of the population,” she said.
According to Cabotaje, many people are not yet convinced to get the jabs while others are located in remote areas of the country.
“We are scaling up our house-to-house vaccination strategy. We are focused on areas with low coverage. We are working closely with the Department of the Interior and Local Government and local government units,” she added.
Cabotaje hoped they could go full-blast in vaccination activities for the rest of April and then May and June.
According to Cabotaje, many people are not yet convinced to get the jabs while others are located in remote areas of the country.
“We are scaling up our house-to-house vaccination strategy. We are focused on areas with low coverage. We are working closely with the Department of the Interior and Local Government and local government units,” she added.
Cabotaje hoped they could go full-blast in vaccination activities for the rest of April and then May and June.
2nd booster
The guidelines for the administration of second booster shots against COVID-19 may come out in the next two weeks, the Department of Health (DOH) said Monday night.
According to DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire, they are still waiting for the recommendation of the Health Technology Assessment Council (HTAC) which is reviewing the second booster dosing for certain eligible sectors.
“We have not issued any guidelines yet…This has to go through the process of HTAC and that is what we are waiting for,” she noted in an interview with One News’ “The Chiefs.”
Vergeire added they got a commitment from HTAC that its recommendation for immunocompromised individuals will be issued within the week.
However, the DOH wanted the recommendations for all eligible recipients to be out at the same time so that “operations would be less challenging.”
Based on the amended emergency use authorization (EUA) of the COVID-19 jabs, the second booster will be administered to senior citizens, immunocompromised and frontline health care workers.
The EUA stated that all COVID-19 vaccines could be used as second booster except for Sputnik V jabs of Russian’s Gamaleya.
The official maintained that administration of second booster may start once the guidelines are out.
Tags: #DoH, #vaccinegoal, #SeniorCitizenPartylist, #COVID19