Galvez “very confident” general public can get COVID vaccines by July

Vaccine czar Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr., updates President Rodrigo Duterte on the status of vaccine deliveries to defeat COVID-19. (Screenshot of PCOO video/May 10, 2021)

 

(Eagle News) — The Philippine government is confident that the vaccination for the general population can start by end of June or July once vaccine doses that have been delivered to the country reached 25 million.

Vaccine czar Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr., said that by June, the vaccine deliveries would have reached 20.5 million doses as more doses from Pfizer, Sinovac, Sputnik, AstraZeneca would have arrived by then, including the first batch of the Moderna vaccines.

The current vaccine supply is over 7.5 million doses.  By the end of May, the total vaccine doses delivered would have reached 11,364,000 doses (11.36 million doses) and by end of June, the expected vaccine doses already delivered to the country would have reached 20,514,000 (20.5 million doses).

Sir, with the output ng ating mga deliveries, we are very confident na by June or July we can have a — we can have a target output na at least mayroon tayong 25 million na vaccine. And with that pagka once na nakuha natin po ‘yan, ang ano ito magiging liberal na po ‘yong ating vaccination. Meaning, we can already have the vaccination of the general public,” Galvez said in his report to President Rodrigo Duterte in his latest Talk to the Nation on Monday night, May 10.

He said that this means that the so-called priorities will be “immaterial” as there are already enough supplies to start the immunization of those outside of the A1 to A4 priority sector. A1 refers to the health care workers, A2 to those aged 60 and above or the so-called senior citizens, A3 refers to those with comorbidities, and A4 refers to the economic frontliners.

-3M vaccine doses to be distributed to LGUs as first doses-

Galvez explained that the current inventory of vaccines is “more or less 5 million.” Of these, 2 million are already reserved as second doses, while another 3 million could be used to vaccinate more people as their first dose.

These 3 million could already be given local government units (LGUs) to speed up the vaccination of those belonging to the priority sectors.

Mr. President, sa ngayon na may 7 million po tayo, mayroon na po tayong stock na 3 million na supply. Meaning, iyon po puwede pong gamitin ng LGU at mapaspasan po ang ating pagva-vaccinate,” he said.

So far, around 4 million doses of the current 7.57 million doses delivered to the country have already been delivered to LGUs.

-Herd immunity can be achieved earlier, gov’t says-

The vaccine czar said that with the arrival of more vaccines in the coming days the challenges in the vaccination due to lack of supplies will already be addressed. If the vaccination will be fast-tracked the country could achieve herd immunity much earlier, he said.

Pagka dumating pa po ‘yong mga ibang mga ano natin mga dinadat — ‘yong ating mga tinatawag na mga vaccine … ibig sabihin paspas po ‘yong ating vaccination. And pagka maganda po ang vaccination natin and it is being done efficiently, baka po ‘yong herd immunity ay makukuha natin nang mas maaga,” he said.

As of May 9, the total vaccine doses already administered have reached 2.4 million.

(Eagle News Service)