Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr., the country’s vaccine czar and chief implementer of the National Task Force (NTF) against the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19), placed himself under isolation after being exposed to several infected staff.
Galvez attended the “Talk to the People” public address of President Duterte on Tuesday night, Jan. 4, albeit virtually since he was exposed twice to the coronavirus when 15 of his staff got infected.
“Pasensya na po sir, hindi po ako nakarating ngayon dahil dalawang beses po ako naexpose kaninang umaga sa aking mga kasamahan. Kasi 15 po sa amin ang nagpositive sa aming opisina ngayong araw (Sorry, sir, I could not personally attend tonight since I was twice exposed to my staff today. Fifteen of my staff tested positive today here in our office),” he said.
Despite this, Galvez continued to function as the NTF chief implementer and over-all in charge of the national vaccination program.
He said the country now has a total vaccine supply of 210,633,110 doses since February 2021.
Out of this number, 114.07 million were procured by the national government; 62.85 million were donations through the global vaccine sharing initiative COVAX facility; 22.58 million were purchased by the private sector and local government units (LGUs); and 11.11 million were directly donated by other countries.
Meanwhile, a total of 108,853,491 doses have already been administered nationwide since the vaccination program was launched in March 2021.
There were 49.85 million individuals who were fully vaccinated which is short of the national target of 54 million by the end of 2021. There were also 57.15 million who have received their first dose and 1.84 million who had their booster shots.
“We’re still relatively slow sa ating pagbu-booster and at the same time, kailangan po naming hanapin at i-vaccinate ang 2.5 million na unvaccinated seniors (We’re still relatively slow with our booster vaccination and at the same time, we need to find and vaccinate 2.5 million unvaccinated seniors),” he said.
“But we are good to report that our vaccination of minors, particularly those aged 12 to 17, already reached eight million who received their first dose and 5.7 million for those who had their second dose,” he added.
Aside from Galvez, Department of National Defense (DND) Secretary and NTF Chairman Delfin Lorenana as well as Department of Health (DOH) and Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) chief Francisco Duque III were also under quarantine after being exposed to COVID-positive individuals.