The Philippine government is expecting the delivery of more or less 100 million doses of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccines in the month of October which is time for the expansion of the government’s vaccination program that would cover children and the general population.
Secretary Carlito Galvez, vaccine czar and the head of the National Task Force Against COVID-19), said that there were delays in the procurement of the vaccines ordered by the government for the month of September, all of those doses will be delivered in October.
“We are expecting 100 million doses to arrive this October. Meaning if we have 100 million doses, the vaccination of 50 million people is very safe maybe by the end of November or December,” said Galvez in an interview following the arrival of 1,233,300 doses of Moderna vaccines.
The delivery of Pfizer vaccines on Thursday and the 391,900 doses of Pfizer vaccines on Wednesday night brought to 71.3 million the total of vaccine doses that were delivered in the country this year.
The recently-arrived Moderna vaccines will be delivered in Calabarzon, Central Luzon, Davao Region, Central Visayas and other areas in the country with high cases of COVID-19.
Currently, there are 45.2 million Filipinos who already received either the first dose or the second dose. There are 26 million doses of vaccines in the inventory.
B and C list
When the government rolled out the vaccination in March this year, those who were prioritized are listed under A categories with 1-5 sub-levels. The priorities were healthcare workers, senior citizens, persons with comorbidity and essential workers.
As the government plans to start the vaccination of the general population, Galvez said they added another categories under B and C priority list.
Category B refers to the remaining adult population while Category C refers to adolescent and children population.
Galvez emphasized the need to vaccinate adolescent and children especially that there face-to-face classes have started for some courses and the country is leaning towards the start of the normal classes.
He cited a case in the United States wherein since most of the population were already vaccinated, those who hospitalized are children.