Now that a more substantial number of vaccines is set to arrive in the country this month – about 9.95 million as per vaccine czar Calito Galvez Jr. – expect the country’s vaccination rollout to shift to high gear in the third quarter of 2021.

As of Wednesday, June 9, 2021,  a total of 6,314,548 doses has been administered since the vaccination program started on March 1. And of this number, 1,681,722 have already gotten their second doses, and about 4.6 million have already been inoculated once. 

That’s an average of about 2.1 million doses administered monthly since March for those classified under A1 (health workers), A2 (senior citizens), A3 (those with comorbidities), and, of late, A4 priority group (essential workers and uniformed personnel)

 Galvez boldly predicts that this figure will climb to five million a month starting in June.

Aside from the huge volumes of vaccines expected this month, inoculation of essential workers and uniformed personnel, classified under A4, and numbering about 35 million, has started.

With this target, the government hopes to achieve “population protection” and “disease burden reduction” before the fourth quarter of 2021.

Under its timeline, the government vaccine rollout expects to inoculate up to the A5 classification, the indigent population, by the end of August.

And once the last quarter of the year sets in, the rollout will include the rest of the Philippine adult population with the national government seeking to, at least, contain the number of deaths and hospitalization caused by the coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

There could also be the inclusion of children aged no younger than 12 years old in the vaccination heap by October.

The national government has, indeed, provided a hopeful outlook for the country in as far as defeating the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic is concerned.

But it has become more and more apparent that supply and demand will play crucial roles in that dream of overcoming COVID-19. A steady supply of vaccines, and an equal level of demand devoid of hesitancy and doubt on whether to take the vaccines or not.

Hesitancy has kept vaccination of the elderly and those with co-morbidities at woeful levels of only 13.99 and 23.31 percent respectively. That’s a total of 2.558 million, who have had their first jabs, and about 531,000, who have had their second dose.

These numbers are a far cry from the 93.58 percent level of inoculation among health workers.

Galvez also feared that vaccine hesitancy was high among the poor, with 40 percent of those in Class D and E of the society having no intention of getting themselves inoculated.

And to compound these, it was also noted that there was a considerable number of those who already had their first jabs, missing their appointments for their second doses.

 No less than a member of the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) noted that, of the three million vaccinated with the Sinovac and Gamaleya vaccines, about half did not return for their second doses.

This was later challenged by Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire, who underscored that only nine percent deferred taking their second dose.

It appears that hesitancy and fear of the very medicines that could save people from COVID-19 are providing the road bumps to what is already a steady ride for the country’s vaccination program riding high on the momentum of more COVID-19 vaccine arrivals.

 It now all depends on the national government, and the general public, to change the hearts of these hesitant Filipinos if the country is to survive this pandemic which has kept our lives on-hold for so long a time.