Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, March 14) — Vice President Leni Robredo reiterated her call to hasten the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, a day after the country saw a one-day increase of 5,000 in cases for the first time in seven months.
In her radio show Biserbisyong Leni on Sunday, Robredo said 30,000 weekly COVID-19 shots would not be enough to achieve the targeted herd immunity to further protect Filipinos from the virus.
“Kung 30,000 a week lang ang nababakunahan, ilang years bago ma-reach natin ‘yung herd immunity? Dapat 70 to 80 million na mga Pilipino ang mabakunahan para magback to normal na tayo,” she sid.
[Translation: If only 30,000 shots are being administered a week, how many years will it take before we reach herd immunity? We’re supposed to target the vaccination of 70 to 80 million Filipinos in order for us to go back to normal.]
She added: “Sana yung deployent mabilisan. Hind pwede yung 30,000 a week na ginagawa natin ngayon.”
[Translation: I hope they fast-track the deployment. We can’t stick with 30,000 doses a week.]
The Department of Health previously set 2022 or 2023 to achieve herd immunity against COVID-19, which would make most of the population immune to the infectious disease.
As of Thursday, more than 400,000 doses from British-Swedish drugmaker AstraZeneca and Chinese-made Sinovac were already distributed nationwide but only over 35,000 health workers got their COVID-19 shots in 169 vaccination sites.
But in a statement on Saturday, vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. said almost 90% of the vaccines the government has on hand had already been deployed, even to far-flung areas, within the past two weeks.
“With these positive developments, the Duterte Administration is confident that it is on track in implementing its immunization program and optimistic that it would be able to achieve its target of inoculating about 70 percent of the country’s population within this year,” he said.
Galvez and members of the vaccine experts panel previously met with the Serum Institute of India to secure short and long-term supplies of Covovax, developed by US drugmaker Novavax. He added that another team is expected to fly to Russia to further conduct a study on the Sputnik V vaccine produced by Gamaleya Research Institute.
