Vice President Leni Robredo reiterated the need to intensify efforts to vaccinate more Filipinos against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) due to the rise of the daily number of infections in the country.
Robredo made the statement after the Department of Health (DOH) reported that the more contagious Delta variant has been detected in all cities and the lone municipality in Metro Manila, bringing the total number of persons infected by the said strain to 331 as of August 6.
In her statement, the Vice President renewed her call to have a faster vaccination as her office continued to help local governments distribute their vaccine supply more efficiently.
"Lalo na dahil may Delta variant, dapat bilisan talaga natin ‘yong deployment... Mas mabilis na deployment , better for us (Especially with the Delta variant, we should speed up the deployment of vaccines. The faster, the better for us)," she said.
"While ‘yong vaccines hindi naman assurance na hindi ka na mai-infect ng virus, at least nape-prevent niya ‘yong severity, saka nape-prevent niya ‘yong hospitalization (While the vaccines are not an assurance that you will not catch the virus, they at least prevent severe cases and hospitalization)," she added.
The Office of the Vice President (OVP) has recently collaborated with the City Government of Iriga to launch IrigaVax Express. The program was an offshoot of the OVP’s Vaccine Express initiative and aimed to cover 5,000 senior citizens who may get vaccinated in one of the three cluster sites, whichever is closest to their barangay.
This initiative was part of the OVP’s continuous efforts to provide logistics support for local government units (LGUs) to help in the faster and more efficient distribution of vaccines among their residents.
IrigaVax was made possible by the following partners—Rotary Club of Iriga, Kabalikat CiviCom, Angena Trading, Red Cross - Iriga, Camarines Sur Medical Society, Philippine Academy of Family Physicians - Iriga, Philippine Nurses Association - Iriga, Our Lady of Mediatrix Hospital, and Millennials PH - Iriga—and medical volunteers.
The OVP earlier brought Vaccine Express to Manila, working with the City Government led by Mayor Isko Moreno, to help the LGU administer two doses of vaccine for 2,979 individuals, most of whom were delivery riders and tricycle and pedicab drivers.
It likewise assisted the Naga City Government, through NagaVax Express, in distributing 6,715 shots of the single-dose Johnson&Johnson vaccine to residents under the priority categories.
The OVP will next bring the initiative to Quezon City, also in partnership with the local government.
Earlier this week, Vice President Robredo said 750,000 individuals must be vaccinated every day to speed up the country’s bid for herd immunity.