BY VICTOR REYES and JOCELYN MONTEMAYOR
DEFENSE Secretary Delfin Lorenzana on Monday told President Duterte he has ordered all military hospitals to help local government units (LGUs) in the COVID-19 national vaccination drive in anticipation of the arrival of more vaccines.
Lorenzana, chairman of the National Task Force against COVID-19, said Navy ships and Air Force planes are also ready to transport vaccines. He said the Navy has 11 ships which have huge refrigeration capacities.
He made the statements during Duterte’s weekly “Talk to the People” address after the President reminded LGUs to make sure they are ready with cold storage facilities or at least some freezers to store the vaccines that would be deployed to them.
“If you don’t have any now, then buy two to three freezers so you can store them there once they (vaccines) arrive,” the President said.
Duterte said LGUs that do not have the cold storage facilities should alert the national government to avoid wasting the vaccines.
Lorenzana yesterday said the military hospitals will be opened as vaccination sites or their medical personnel will be deployed to the vaccination sites of LGUs.
In the same event, Interior Secretary Eduardo Año said 33.34 million people have registered to be vaccinated through the LGUs, based on data from the DILG’s Vaccination Monitoring System. He did not say how many of them have been vaccinated.
He commended some LGUs for offering incentives to convince the public to get vaccinated, like raffling off motorcycles, house and lots, and offering discounts and freebies.
NTF chief and vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. told the President up to 10 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines should be kept in stock, with about half reserved as second dose, before the government can deploy more vaccines to provinces and cities outside Metro Manila.
He said the current inventory is 6 million doses, with about 3 million set aside for the second dose.
He was responding to Duterte’s statement on the need for more vaccines to be sent in outside the National Capital Region.
Galvez reassured the areas with surges or high number of COVID cases that more vaccines would be sent to them as soon as more supplies arrive.
He said that the country expects at least 30.87 million doses of procured and donated vaccines — including an estimated 800,000 to one million doses donated by the United States government and the 1.1 million doses donated by the Japanese government — to arrive in July and 44.54 million doses of procured vaccines in August.
Galvez said the country is also expecting 99,600 doses of more vaccines from Moderna this June. He said the Moderna vaccine — separate from the 249,600 vaccines delivered on June 27 — will be given to seafarers and other Filipinos working overseas.
The government targets to procure 148 million doses and vaccinate 50 million to 70 million Filipinos this year.
Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire asked LGUs to provide better working conditions for vaccinators, including limiting their work to only eight hours daily, “so that they can get some rest and reduce making mistakes or human error.”
She said LGUs can also limit to 100 the number of individuals to be vaccinated per shift
“The ideal is to have six members per vaccination team. And per team, they must be able to vaccinate 100 people,” she said, recalling a time and motion study.
The DOH issued the statement after a video that went viral showed a vaccinee in Makati City failed to get the dose when the vaccinator failed to press the syringe plunger.
The health department has ordered an investigation on the “clear breach of vaccination protocol” but Vergeire appealed to the public to go easy on the volunteer vaccinator.
“We are asking for our countrymen’s understanding. Let us not crucify our healthcare workers. We all make mistakes,” said Vergeire. — With Gerard Naval, Raymond Africa and Noel Talacay
