VACCINATION. Health workers in St. Luke’s Hospital receive shots of the Covid-19 vaccine in this undated photo. Vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. on Wednesday (June 2, 2021) expressed confidence that the government's population protection target is still achievable by the end of the year. (PNA file photo by Robert Alfiler)
MANILA – National Task Force (NTF) Against Covid-19 chief implementer, Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr., on Wednesday expressed confidence that the government's population protection target is still achievable by the end of the year.
"We have the numbers. Kaya pa rin yung 70 percent ng ating (We can still get the 70 percent of the) population by end of the year," Galvez, also vaccine czar, said in a television interview.
Galvez said more vaccination sites would be set up with the bulk of coronavirus jabs arriving starting this month.
The country's highest vaccination rate is so far at least 237,000 daily as there are 3,850 active vaccination sites nationwide.
Galvez said the government has already computed the numbers of individuals needed to be inoculated daily to get the target for population protection.
With the help of various private sector and other supply chain management experts, he said the government has conducted series of simulations on vaccine handling and inoculation rollout.
"In Metro Manila alone, they can achieve the herd immunity or 70 percent of target population if they could inoculate 120,000 individuals a day which they were able to breach and they should run at least 1,200 vaccination sites," Galvez said.
Once the population protection target is achieved, he said the country's economy can fully reopen.
Citing similar pandemic situations in the United States, Israel, and United Kingdom, Galvez noted the significant decrease in Covid-19 cases after inoculating only 30 percent of their respective populations.
“Makikita natin yung threshold pag nakuha na natin yung 30 percent, maganda na, we can open up some restrictions. And then 50 percent, we can open up fully yung economy natin (We will see that once we get the threshold of 30 percent, it's good, we can open up some restrictions. And then 50 percent, we can fully open up our economy)," he said.
Galvez said the government is also gearing up the vaccination of the general public.
"So ang ginagawa natin para lang systematic tayo at para makuha natin 'yung almost 30 million na kailangan na nating mabakuhanan, yung tinatawag nating most vulnerable at saka yung tinatawag nating most active population (We are doing a systematic approach to inoculate the 30 million target individuals, who are most vulnerable and most active population)," he added.
The government's strategy to combat pandemic includes disease containment, he said.
The Philippines will push the daily inoculation of 500,000 to 600,000 individuals, he said, once the government would be able to stockpile at least 15 million doses of Covid-19 jab every month in the inventory.
Galvez earlier said they are expecting to receive a total of 10 million doses of coronavirus from various manufacturers within this month.
The government has so far inoculated over 5 million individuals in its list of priority groups. (PNA)
