Robredo OK with gov’t vax drive, says 1M daily jabs needed
Vice President Leni Robredo has lauded the national government’s vaccination efforts but stressed the need to administer one million COVID-19 vaccine doses per day amid the new mutations of the coronavirus.
"That's big. Several months, very welcome na nakarating tayo sa ganitong (that we have reached these) numbers a day, but with the Delta variant, it's not enough anymore," Robredo said during an interview on CNN Philippines on Tuesday, August 10.
The vice president was referring to the record daily vaccination rate of 500,000 in previous months.
Just last week, the government recorded the highest number of vaccines administered in a day at 710,000.
“We should aim for a higher number. Dapat nagmi-milyon na tayo (We should reach one million in) a day if only masabayan natin o maunahan natin ang pagkalat ng (we can go ahead of the spread of the) Delta variant,” she added.
READ: Robredo presses for ‘evolving’ gov’t efforts vs new COVID-19 variants
Robredo noted that vaccinating more people will be more effective than booster shots.
Aside from increasing the number of daily vaccinations, Robredo said the government should intensify COVID-19 testing and contact tracing efforts to identify those positive and isolate them immediately.
“We should really test more so we can find out where the transmission is and isolate COVID-19 cases,” she stressed.
On Monday, testing czar Vince Dizon said the national government is already looking at inoculating one million people per day, but subject to country’s vaccine supply.
READ: PH eyes to vaccinate 1M individuals daily — Dizon
The country is expected to receive three million more doses of COVID-19 vaccines—813,150 doses of Pfizer vaccine on Aug. 11 and two million doses of Sinovac vaccine on Aug. 12—this week.
The vaccines will be immediately delivered to PharmaServ Express’ cold-chain facility in Marikina City for temporary storage before they are packed and distributed to various areas of the country.
PharmaServ Express, the Department of Health’s national cold-chain and logistics partner, will deliver more Sinovac vaccines to local government units in Metro Manila in the coming days following the issuance of the certificate of analysis last Sunday.