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Manila Bulletin devider Philippines devider National devider IATF urged to accelerate vaccination rollout to gain momentum vs new variants

IATF urged to accelerate vaccination rollout to gain momentum vs new variants

Published Jul 8, 2021 12:50 pm

Senator Risa Hontiveros on Thursday, July 8 urged the Inter-Agency Task Force to accelerate its COVID-19 vaccination rollout to gain momentum against emerging new variants of the coronavirus.

Hontiveros lamented that the current pace of the national vaccination program in the country remained sluggish while more transmissible COVID-19 variants are fast developing.

She noted the IATF has yet to accomplish its own target though millions of Filipinos have already been inoculated.

“In the latest report, it is still far from the target of the number of population that needs to be protected. Even though the supplies are coming in as scheduled, the inoculation program still has yet to be fully implemented,” Hontiveros said.

Aside from the threat of new variants, the senator noted some local government units (LGU) are cancelling their vaccination schedules for lack of supply.

“If we hope to achieve herd immunity or even containment, all provinces should at least receive a steady supply of vaccines,” she pointed out.

“Otherwise, there will always be a threat of surges elsewhere, especially in places where there is low vaccination coverage,” the lawmaker emphasized.

“We continue to call on the IATF to accelerate the vaccination program because we’re already in the middle of the year, and yet the number of Filipinos inoculated is still way far from the actual number of the target the government has set,” she lamented.

Currently, the government is able to perform an average of more than 240,000 vaccinations a day, which is still less than half of the previously recommended 500,000 vaccinations daily.

She said this number is very distant from the more than 720,000 doses needed to be administered every day to reach IATF’s own herd immunity target by December 31, 2021.

“No province should be left behind. We can only achieve this if the government is able to secure a stable supply of vaccines for its population,” she said.

“We must gain a strong and steady momentum in this long fight against COVID-19,” Hontiveros stressed.

Related Tags

new covid-19 variants Risa Hontiveros covid-19 vaccination program IATF
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