Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto on Tuesday, March 16, called on the government to release daily reports on its vaccination program to further improve the country's COVID-19 response.
(Senate of the Philippines / FILE PHOTO / MANILA BULLETIN)
"Government should now start releasing daily reports on the number of people who have been vaccinated," he said in a statement.
"This is the national scoreboard that will tell us how far we are into our vaccination goal and how fast we are doing it." Recto said the vaccination report could be incorporated into the Department of Health's (DOH) on daily updates on novel coronavirus cases (COVID-19), and should include breakdown by regions or by age group.
The vaccination report will also serve as "regional speedometers will tell us the vaccination volume and velocity in a certain area." "If we tally deaths, we should also tally the lives saved," he pointed out.
Further, he said: "Having this granular data is important in mapping out moves against the virus. It is also the database that forms the backbone of the national vaccine passport information system." On Monday, the Senate leader urged the government to come up with a vaccination "offensive" for April to June to specify its targets "in terms of the number of people vaccinated, the number of vaccines that will arrive, and where they will be sent." The Philippines marked it first year under community quarantine with a surge of COVID-19 cases. New coronavirus infections soared to 5,404 on Monday, March 15, pushing up the total number of COVID-19 cases in the country to 626,893.
"We should begin clocking our progress, or the lack of it," Recto said Tuesday.