VACCINATION rate nationwide is down to 500,000 doses from more than a million a day, and government is planning to conduct house-to-house jabbing to reach more people, vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. said Monday night.
Galvez, during the “Talk to the People” address of President Duterte, said even the third National Vaccination Day early this month reached only three million doses of COVID-19 vaccines of the five million target. The two-day National Vaccination Day was extended to five days and still failed to reach the target.
“We have reached saturation point or what we call the inflection point in our vaccination centers and we now need to visit the barangays and do house to house visits to again raise the daily vaccination output,” he said in Filipino.
Galvez said the main priority is to convince some three million unvaccinated elders and persons with comorbidities to get inoculated as they are the most vulnerable to COVID-19, apart from the other unvaccinated individuals.
He said that as of February 20, some 62.5 million individuals are now fully vaccinated. The government aims to vaccinate 90 million of the population by the end of June.
Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles on yesterday said that as of February 21, about 134.3 million doses of vaccines have been administered nationwide — 61.898 million as first dose, 62.65 million as second, and 9.78 million as booster shots.
Galvez said the National Vaccination Operations Center (NVOC) of the Department of Health has designated a focal person for each region to make sure that at least 70 percent of their eligible population will be vaccinated.
He said only the regions of Mimaropa (65.35 percent), Bicol (69.42 percent), Soccsksargen (61.25 percent), Caraga (69.59 percent) have yet to fully vaccinate 70 percent of their population, or higher.
The Bangsamoro Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) continues to trail with only 28.02 percent of its population fully vaccinated.
Galvez said the rest of the regions will focus more on administering booster shots on the adult population and the primary series on the adolescents and pediatric sectors, as it continues to offer the first two jabs to the unvaccinated population.
SHOW-CAUSE ORDER
The Department of Interior and Local Government is studying if there is a need to issue show-cause orders to local government units which are lagging in the COVID-19 vaccination program.
“As of now, we have yet to issue show-cause orders although there is already a recommendation, data that were given to us by the Department of Health,” Interior Undersecretary and spokesman Jonathan Malaya said during the “Laging Handa” press briefing.
Malaya did not identify the LGUs that may be issued show-cause orders although he acknowledged that the BARMM has the lowest vaccination rate.
Malaya said the DILG and the Department of Health are conducting consultations and dialogues with religious leaders and officials in BARMM “to address the (vaccine) hesitancy of our countrymen in the area.”
“As of now, we would rather do proactive measures before issuing show-cause orders but the matter is now pending with the desk of Secretary (Eduardo) Año,” he said.
Malaya said the government continues to step up the vaccination drive, targeting about three million elders and those with comorbidities.
“We must vaccinate 80 percent of them before we go to Alert Level 1,” he said.
“Before the start of the campaign period for local elections (on March 25), we hope to bring the vaccines to the barangays and if needed, we will do house-to-house vaccination to reach the target to vaccinate the three million senior citizens and those with comorbidities,” he added.
MINORS
Galvez said 65 percent or 8.295 million of adolescents aged 12 to 17 years are now fully vaccinated.
He said there is no decision yet on booster shots for this sector even as the government has already prepared for it.
He said experts are still studying the urgency of administering a booster to teens while at the same time monitoring the situation abroad, if other countries would start giving boosters to adolescents. The initial target of the government is to complete the administering of the booster on the 12-17-year-olds by the end of June.
Galvez said for the 5-to-11-year-old group, at least 437,939 minors have received their first dose and 69 kids reported side effects and were treated immediately.
He said the government has asked Pfizer to fast track the delivery of the pediatric vaccines and complete the delivery of 15 million doses in the first quarter and 10 million doses in the second quarter.
The government aims to fully vaccinate more than 15 million five-to-11-year-olds and administer a booster before the end of June.
On vaccines for the zero-to-four-year-olds, Galvez said it is still undergoing further studies. — With Victor Reyes
