Despite the coronavirus vaccine supply problems, the Philippines should still aim for high targets on COVID-19 vaccination to achieve herd immunity, Vice President Leni Robredo said on Sunday, May 30.

Speaking on her weekly radio show with radioman Ely Saludar, the vice president explained that aiming for high targets will push the government to act toward the goal.

“Okay naman iyong mas realistic ‘yung targets pero para kasi sa akin, Ka Ely, mas marami tayong gagawin, mas urgent ‘yung ating pag-aksyon kapag mas mataas ‘yung targets, di ba? Ang gusto ko sabihin, wala naman tayong talo kung mataas ‘yung targets natin (It’s okay to have more realistic targets but for me, Ka Ely, we will do more, we will be more urgent in our actions if our targets are higher, right? What I want to say, we lose nothing by targeting higher),” she said.

“Hindi makakasama na mag-aim pa din tayo for herd immunity para ang aksyon natin, iyong mga ginagawa natin towards that end (It’s not going to be bad for us if we aim still for herd immunity so our actions, everything that we do will be towards that end),”

Robredo added.

Earlier this month, National Task Force Against COVID-19 chief implementer and vaccine czar Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. said that the COVID-19 vaccine supply to the country is being affected by the recent surge in India. Doses of the AstraZeneca, Novavax, and Covaxin jabs are manufactured in India.

Instead of aiming to vaccinate at least 70 million of the 110 million Filipinos this year, the vaccine czar told President Duterte during a Cabinet meeting that the Philippines will have to settle to vaccinating 50 percent of the population, or around 60 million Filipinos.

To reach herd immunity, the country has to inoculate 70 to 80 million Filipinos. Herd immunity happens when the virus can’t spread in a community because it keeps encountering people who are protected against the virus.

READ: https://mb.com.ph/2021/05/24/govt-targets-vaccination-of-9-7-million-people-in-ncr-by-november-2021/

Robredo is also pushing for the training of more vaccinators as even with a steady supply of vaccines, herd immunity cannot be achieved when there is a lack of vaccinators.

In the Philippines, only doctors and nurses are allowed to administer the vaccine. In other countries, governments and health ministries train other health workers to become vaccinators.

“Pwede pa din tayong maghabol kasi kung aasa lang tayo sa mga doctor saka nurses na sobra na nga ‘yung kanilang ginagawa sa mga hospital, matatagalan talaga (We can still keep up because if we’re just going to rely on doctors and nurses who are already doing so much in the hospitals, our rollout will really be slow),” Robredo said.

So far, the Philippines has inoculated 1 percent of its population. The government targets to vaccinate at least 450,000 individuals in the coming weeks to reach herd immunity by either the end of this year or early 2022.