DAVAO CITY – The local government of Davao had asked the Department of Health (DOH)-Davao to allow the administration of booster shots for healthcare workers against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) as cases in Davao City are surging amid the presence of COVID-19 variants , particularly the more transmissible Delta variant, Mayor Sara Duterte said on Monday.
Duterte was reacting to reports on the severe shortages of healthcare workers in medical institutions after many of them contracted COVID-19.
She said Davao City's COVID-19 Task Force passed a resolution on Monday requesting the agency to approve the rollout of booster shots to those belonging to priority A1 category or healthcare workers to ensure that they get protected from the infection.
“We passed a resolution seeking permission... from the regional office of DOH to allow the rollout of booster shots to all health workers working inside hospitals. That’s the action of COVID-19 task force,” she said.
There are a total of 672,305 individuals who received the first dose in the city as of September 15 and 421,852 for the second dose. Of this figure, 60,240 health care workers received their first dose and 47,941 got their second dose.
As of 2:30 p.m. DOH-Davao regional director Annabelle Yumang has yet to comment on the request of the local government. The DOH-Davao also has not released the number of health workers in the city who contracted COVID-19 despite being fully vaccinated.
But last September 13, the DOH said that its experts are discussing the possibility of allowing “booster doses.”
“Right now, there is no final recommendation from the experts or from the DOH regarding the giving of booster doses,” it said.
Duterte said she recognizes the lack of health care workers due to the outbreaks in the hospitals.
“The problem of lack of health care workers? There’s no solution to that. That has been a ‘blank wall’ since last year there at our hospitals. There is a really severe shortage right now because of outbreaks in hospitals,” she said.
As of Sunday, DOH-Davao reported 385 new cases in the city, bringing the total number of cases to 46,638, 9,728 of which are active, 35,530 recoveries, and 1,380 deaths.
The DOH-Davao confirmed the detection of 36 additional Delta cases last September 13, of which 32 are local cases, one is a returning overseas Filipino, and three others who were tested and sequenced by other regions are still for verification.
To date, the DOH-Davao reported a total of 537 variants of concern (VOC) cases: Alpha variant -- 139 cases; Beta -- 304 cases; and Delta -- 94 cases.