DAVAO City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio said the city will be ramping up its daily vaccination from 10,000 to 15,000 vaccinees per day in order to achieve the targeted herd immunity before the end of this year.
Duterte-Carpio said on Monday, August 16, that the current target number is not enough to reach the city’s target of 1.2 million vaccinated residents by December 2021.
"We see man gud sa pagkakaron, although we are able to target 10,000 per day nato, we see it is not fast enough ang 10,000 first doses per day. We need to create more teams para mas mapadaghan nato ang atoang vaccinations, and we'd like to target at least 15,000 first doses per day," Duterte-Carpio said in an interview on 87.5 FM Davao City Disaster Radio.
The mayor said they are targeting to implement different vaccination strategies, including opening more vaccination sites and sectoral vaccination.
"Ngano kinahanglan nato patas-an atong (Why do we need to increase our) minimum number of first doses per day, it's because nagadali tang tanan nga ma-rollout ang mga bakuna, and mabakunahan kining mga kaigsuunang Dabawenyo because ang pagbakuna or ang fully dosed na individual, less likely siya mahimong severe or critical na case (We need to vaccinate Dabawenyos as fast as we can because those who are fully vaccinated are less likely to become a severe or critical case),” she said.
She added that having more fully vaccinated individuals will prevent overwhelming hospital beds, including those from the intensive care units (ICU).
Duterte-Carpio added that according to health experts, fully vaccinated are those individuals who were able to finish their two shots, except for those vaccinated with the single-shot Johnson & Johnson Jannsen vaccine.
The mayor, however, said this will only be achievable if there will be an ample and stable supply of vaccines in the city.
She also said the city has already written a draft letter to the Department of Health-Davao Region wherein they presented the city's plan on its vaccination program, including the request for “vaccine support to the city.”
"Kung ilaha tang tabangan (If they will help us), with regards to supply sa bakuna, makuha nato tanang (we will able to reach and vaccinate all with the) first dose within 2021,” the mayor said.
With the recent vaccine arrivals, the mayor ordered the vaccination cluster to immediately roll out the available vaccines.
In terms of manpower, the mayor said the Human Resource Management Office (HRMO) is continuously hiring workers for the staffing even vaccination sites.
The mayor said the city can achieve the 15,000 daily vaccinees by adding seven more vaccination sites set by DOH.
As of August 16, the city has already inoculated 453,424 Dabawenyos for the first dose, and 297,201 for the second dose. This covers priority groups A1 (healthcare workers and others), A2 (senior citizens), A3 (persons with comorbidities), A4 (workers who need to go out) and A5 (indigent population) against the highly infectious coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19).