Senator Christopher “Bong” Go on Sunday assured that more COVID-19 vaccines would be coming into the Philippines in the next few weeks, saying the government is doing its best to fast track the delivery of these shots to be able to vaccinate more people in the months to come.

Should supplies arrive on time, Go said the government can expect to fulfill its target to vaccinate 70 million Filipinos by the end of 2021 and lower the risk of the virus spreading in communities, workplaces and schools.

Hopefully, the Senate Committee on Health and Demography chief said, this would altogether put a stop to the country’s COVID-19 pandemic woes.

“The government is continually purchasing shots. Hopefully, in April, we have the five million vaccines that have been lined-up. By May, there  would be additional jabs again. By second quarter, we’re hoping to vaccinate more and more people so we can attain herd immunity by the end of the year,” Go said in a recent radio interview.

Go, President Duterte’s former assistant, enumerated that the country already has 1.5 million donated doses half of which could cover 750,000 frontliners. 

On Monday, he said the President will accept the one million doses of Sinovac which the government purchased; another 900,000 will also arrive coming from the COVAX facility soon.

According to Go, the government has 1,000,000 doses of Sinovac vaccines and 525,600 Astrazeneca doses. The incoming shipment from Sinovac will raise the country’s total to 2,525,600 doses. 

He also added  the Philippines is on schedule to acquire more than 3.4 million doses by the start of the second quarter of this year – enough to inoculate the country’s 1.7 million frontliners. 

He further assured that the government had already secured the necessary amount of doses to vaccinate the country’s frontline healthcare workers. 

Go reiterated it is imperative that the government follows the vaccination priority list issued by the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) on Emerging Infectious Diseases and the National Task Force Against COVID-19  despite reports of some individuals jumping the line to get themselves inoculated.

After the government achieves vaccinating frontline medical health workers, they can start inoculating other sectors in the priority list and eventually reach the general public. 

The Executive branch, he said, remains focused on obtaining enough vaccines for the people amid a limited global supply. 

“That’s why in the Senate, we passed the indemnification law. However, right now, the problem is on the supply, there’s been hoarding but we expected that,” he pointed out.

That’s why the government is doing all it can to be able to achieve sufficient, safe and effective vaccines for the Filipinos. Let’s just wait and trust our government. do not be afraid to get vaccinated because this is the only solution to this crisis,” Go stressed.