PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday, October 20, expressed gratitude to Japan and the United States for their donation of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) vaccines that will help boost the country’s fight against the deadly disease.
Duterte said the vaccine donations from the two countries will help give Filipinos a better Christmas this year.
Japan’s first tranche of donations, which consisted of 1.124 million doses of Astrazeneca vaccines, arrived on July 8.
It pledged to donate another 1.96 million of Astrazeneca vaccines, which can be expected in the coming days.
“Indeed, Japan is a friend closer than a brother ready to help in times of need,” Duterte said.
Duterte said the United States, on the other hand, donated approximately 18 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines, in which some were coursed through the Covax facility.
These vaccines demonstrate the strength of the US and Philippine alliance, the President said.
“The delivery also demonstrates the wisdom of the Philippines' decision to do its part in contributing to the Covax facility and strengthening its engagement with the United Nations and World Health Organization (WHO) that the vaccines will benefit our country and help us being closer to the goal of having a better Christmas,” he added.
The Philippines received over 90 million Covid-19 vaccines since February.
National Task Force (NTF) against Covid-19 Carlito Galvez Jr. said as of October 20, at least 24.5 million Filipinos were fully vaccinated while more than 28 million others received the first dose.
He said the number of fully vaccinated individuals represents a total of 31.76 percent of the target population and 22.23 percent of the country’s total population.
In the National Capital Region, the epicenter of the Covid-19 pandemic in the Philippines, Galvez said 80 percent were fully vaccinated while around 93 percent have received their first dose.
“We are now raising the daily target to 1.5 million a day in order to achieve a happy Christmas this year. We will be opening the general population, then the pilot of children vaccination, and we are ramping up the vaccination of students, teachers, and tourism personnel, OFWs, and seafarers,” said Galvez.
The Department of Health (DOH) said around 1,500 minors with comorbidities have received their first dose since the pilot implementation of children’s vaccination started on October 15.
Galvez is confident that the country will continue to ramp up its vaccination considering that vaccine supply “is no longer a problem.”
“For this month, we already received 20 million that already arrived. This is the biggest arrival since most of our vaccines that we received last month is only 19 million. So the achieving of 100 million doses delivery before the end of October is on track. And right now, the supply is not anymore an issue. We have more than 38 million doses in our warehouses,” he said.
He said their primary concern as of the moment is the logistics and distribution issues in vaccine centers especially in remote areas.
Galvez said there were instances that it takes seven to nine days before vaccine doses arrive at their destination.
Meantime, Galvez said they were studying the proposal of private sectors to give incentives to encourage people to get vaccinated.
Some of the incentives the private sector suggested were the following:
* Give companies right not to hire unvaccinated applicants.
* Require RT-PCR tests for unvaccinated existing employees at their own expense.
* Mandatory vaccines for healthcare workers, school employees, public transport workers, civil servants, and for 4Ps
* Mandatory vaccinations for unrestricted access to public transport, travel, restaurants, and tourism establishments
Galvez said they were also studying to prohibit unvaccinated individuals from going outside.
"Ibig sabihin 'pag nag-vaccinate, sila lang puwedeng lumabas, sila lang puwedeng mag-dine in at pwede rin pong mag-travel at tsaka walang restrictions," he said. (SunStar Philippines)