Gov't to intensify COVID-19 vaccination efforts under Alert Level 1; 4th nat'l vax drive eyed by March 10
By Dhel Nazario
As restrictions ease in 39 areas under Alert Level 1 status, the government looks to boost its efforts in vaccinating individuals against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), an official from the Department of Health (DOH) said on Wednesday, March 2.

During the Laging Handa public briefing, Health Undersecretary and National Vaccination Operations Center (NVOC) Chairperson Myrna Cabotaje said that they will enhance their house-to-house vaccination efforts as well as information drives to encourage more people to get vaccinated.
"Yung alert level bumaba na (The alert level lowered), so we will allow more face-to-face communication," she said.
She added that the government also aims to conduct its fourth national vaccination drive next week on March 10, 11, and 12 with the theme "March to Vaccinate" as they will bring the vaccines to homes and offices as well.
Recently the government failed to achieve its goal of 5 million COVID-19 doses administered for its third national vaccination drive.
On the other hand, the same reason for the turnout of booster shots has been observed by Cabotaje as she said that people are not yet seeing the immediate need to get a booster shot while others are still thinking if they actually need it.
"Yung iba nag-iisip kung kailangan ng booster (Others are thinking if they need boosters), yung iba naman (while others) they don't see the urgency of the booster," she said.
According to the data stated by Cabotaje, there are around 36.7 million individuals due for booster shots and around 10 million have already received it.
She mentioned that they aim to head for workplaces to provide people such as healthcare workers, economic frontliners and others more with COVID-19 boosters which according to her, can boost the waning immunity they got from their primary vaccine shots.
To date, data from NVOC shows that 93 percent of healthcare workers, 62.82 percent of senior citizens, and 92 percent of people with comorbidities have been fully vaccinated, respectively.