(PNA photo by Gil Calinga)
MANILA – The government and health authorities are not promoting scare tactics to further improve the country’s Covid-19 vaccination program, National Task Force (NTF) against Covid-19 chief and vaccine czar, Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. said Wednesday.
In a virtual media forum, Galvez clarified that the government's massive vaccination campaign only aims to push a higher level of vigilance among the public.
“We are not yet over [with this pandemic]. We are not yet ensured that resurgence of cases will not happen again,” Galvez said, emphasizing that the virus still exists and vaccination is crucial in protecting one’s health.
“That means, still, we should not be complacent as said by the World Health Organization, there’s still a possibility that the cases will surge by the end of the elections,” he added.
The government earlier aimed to administer 20 million jabs monthly, since March last year, to provide full protection to up to 90 million Filipinos in the second quarter of this year.
But at the beginning of January, Galvez noted a significant decrease in vaccine demand, administering only 18. 2 million doses, much lower than the 27.1 million and 22 million jabs injected from November to December last year, respectively.
The vaccination output declined to 8.7 million doses in February and further slowed down to 6.7 million in March.
“Now we are already in the halfway of April, but so far, honestly we are now having a drawback as we only have 2.5 million administered doses,” Galvez said.
However, he noted that the decline of vaccine demand is being experienced globally due to complacency on low Covid-19 active cases.
“The major challenge now is how to change the mindset of the people that the virus still exists,” he said. “We could not afford to become vigilant and be complacent.”
Galvez said there is no room for complacency until the WHO declares the global health crisis is over.
So far, the Philippines has administered 144,781,087 doses of coronavirus vaccines, with 66,979,873 Filipinos already with the full primary series but only 12,687,684 have booster shots.
Galvez said the government would further intensify the Covid-19 vaccination program until June amid the decline in vaccine demand among Filipinos across the country.
The NTF earlier announced the fourth dose or second booster shot for medical front-liners, senior citizens and those with comorbidities will now be available.
Galvez said the country has enough supplies of the Covid-19 vaccine. (PNA)
