A member of the five-man Private Sector Advisory Council (PSAC) is leading a campaign to increase booster protection against the new coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) as part of his role in the council of ensuring job creation and retention.
Joey Concepcion, who is sector lead of PSAC’s jab to jobs, has recommended to make wearing of mask outdoors optional once a critical mass of the qualified population gets their booster shots of the new corona virus disease 2019 vaccine.
At the Laging Handa public briefing, Concepcion said each of the clusters in PSAC, including his own, is preparing a presentation of the challenges and opportunities in their specific sector assignments to be submitted to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in three weeks.
But for Concepcion, retaining and creating jobs run side by side with a higher percentage of population getting their first or even the second booster shots as this ensures higher protection that leads to increased mobility and continuity of business operations.
Concepcion had proposed to incentivize the public to get their booster shots by making wearing of masks optional outdoors. This is once at least 70 percent of the 70-percent qualified individuals who got their primary vaccines get their booster shots.
At present, only 20 percent of those who got their primary vaccines have received boosters.
“It will take time because there is resistance; so we have to convince people to get their booster shots especially as the vaccines are available,” he said.
Advisory Council of Experts (ACE) also led by Concepcion adopted “ISA PA” as the rallying cry for renewed efforts to push booster vaccination among Filipinos.
Concepcion hopes the Health Technology Assessment Council (HTAC) decides to open the booster vaccination to those aged 50 year old and older.
Concepcion reiterated his proposal to shift from alert level to the more transparent and easier-to-understand stop light system in determining the COVID infection status in an area using only the average daily attack rate and the health care utilization rate as basis.
The new system defines resulting activity restrictions based on their regional applicability, and incentivizes regions with good pandemic status with relaxed rules on the wearing of face masks.
The proposal lays down a plan to address the inventory and accessibility of COVID vaccines by recommending that the vaccines be granted a Certificate of Product Registration.
