• There’s an online tool that predicts when you are likely to get the jab

• It’s called the Vaccine Queue Calculator and it estimates how many people are ahead of you in the queue

• It will also predict how long you might have to wait to get the vaccine jab

The much-awaited vaccination drive against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) finally started in the Philippines this week, after over a year of facing the pandemic which caused more than 12,000 casualties and plunged the country's economic growth.

With around 110 million people in the Philippines, who will be the first in the queue and how long will it be until you get vaccinated? Kenneth Alambra, a civil engineer from the University of the Philippines Los Baños, and Reina Sagnip, a researcher from the De La Salle University in Manila, teamed up to create a vaccine queue calculator to answer these questions.

"The Vaccine Queue Calculator for the Philippines will estimate how many people are ahead of you in the queue to get a COVID vaccine in the Philippines. It also predicts how long you might have to wait to get your vaccine doses," Kenneth and Reina said.

Through the Philippine Vaccine Queue Calculator, one will have an idea of when they can get vaccinated.

Vaccine queue calculator

How to use the vaccine queue calculator? First, several questions will be asked from the user such as age, whether one is a frontline health worker, frontline personnel in essential sectors, or just employed but not a frontliner.

It will also ask if the user is a person with comorbidities; an indigent, or a person with disability (as determined by the Department of Social Welfare and Development); or is included in the socio-demographic groups at significant higher risk.

The calculator will then guess how many people are ahead of you in the queue and estimate when you are likely to be vaccinated using the target vaccination rate of the government.

Given a vaccination rate of 1,274,980 a week and an uptake of 56 percent, the calculator estimates that a 25-year-old who is not a frontline worker, without comorbidities, and is not indigent, could receive the two doses of vaccine between August 4 and Oct. 24, 2021.

"We've based our vaccine queue calculator on the data provided by The Philippine National Deployment and Vaccination Plan for COVID-19 Vaccines for the priority list, and the likely vaccination rate to achieve the government's target to vaccinate 50 to 70 percent of the adult population for the rest of 2021," the pair explained.

The uptake rate, meanwhile, is based on a February 2021 survey which shows that only 56 percent are willing to take the COVID-19 vaccine.

Who gets the vaccine first?

The government has published a priority list which is divided into the following groups for the vaccination plan: A1: Frontline workers in health facilities both national and local, private and public, health professionals and non-professionals like students, nursing aides, janitors, barangay health workers, etc.

A2: Senior citizens aged 60 years old and above

A3: Persons with comorbidities not otherwise included in the preceding categories

A4: Frontline personnel in essential sectors including uniformed personnel and those in working sectors identified by the IATF as essential during ECQ

A5: Indigent population not otherwise included in the preceding categories

B1: Teachers, social workers

B2: Other government workers

B3: Other essential workers

B4: Socio-demographic groups at significantly higher risk other than senior citizens and indigenous people

B5: Overseas Filipino workers

B6: Other remaining workforce

C: Rest of the Filipino population not otherwise included in the above groups

Be patient

While waiting to get the vaccine might be frustrating, prioritizing those who are most at risk will save more lives and speed up the country's recovery to move forward to the new normal.