Health Secretary Francisco Duque III admitted Wednesday the incoming supplies of COVID-19 vaccines were not enough to cover the A4 category, or essential workers, as the country was still far from reaching herd immunity.
Duque, during an interview on Balitanghali, said around 12 million economic frontliners would be needing about 24 million doses of vaccine.
“It’s still insufficient because we need to finish vaccinating 9 million A2 group senior citizens who need 18 million doses because we need two doses per person,” Duque said.
“We still need 10 million doses for people with comorbidities,” Duque added.
Duque said 500,000 doses of Sinovac were expected to arrive on Thursday at 7:30 p.m.
Meanwhile, Duque said 160,000 doses of vaccines made by American drugmaker Moderna would arrive later this month.
In addition, Duque said 300,000 Sputnik V doses would also arrive soon, while 2.2 million doses of Pfizer would also be delivered.
During the Talk to the Nation aired on Tuesday, vaccine czar Carlito Galvez said they were preparing to inoculate A4 and A5 (indigent) groups once supplies of vaccines become steady.
Duque echoed Galvez’s suggestion, saying they plan for an overlapping of vaccination for A4 groups to ramp up inoculation.
June vaccination
The Department of Health said Wednesday vaccination of essential workers and indigents in June would only be concentrated in “NCR + 8” or Metro Manila, Metro Cebu, Metro Davao, and provinces that form Calabarzon and Central Luzon.
“We will concentrate A4 and A5 vaccinations in areas where there is a surge in cases, so that’s NCR + 8.),” Health Undersecretary Myrna Cabotaje said during the Laging Handa briefing.
Galvez had earlier announced that essential workers and indigents, belonging to the A4 and A5 priority sectors, would be vaccinated starting June once the country’s supply stabilized.
Citing data from the National Economic and Development Authority, Galvez said there are 12.8 million essential workers and 16 million indigents.
On the other hand, Cabotaje said the vaccination of the A4 and A5 groups would still be simultaneous with the inoculation of health workers, senior citizens, and persons with comorbidities or the A1, A2, and A3 groups.
Cabotaje also said experts would look into proposals to include students and election workers in the priority groups for vaccination and raise the matter to the government’s inter-agency COVID-19 task force.
The Philippines has vaccinated 2.5 million individuals as of May 18, still far from the government’s target of inoculating 50 million to 70 million people this year.
Economic frontliners
Presidential Adviser for Entrepreneurship Secretary Joey Concepcion said Wednesday almost all economic frontliners, including business processing outsourcing workers, have been included in the A4 priority group for COVID-19 vaccination.
In an interview on Unang Balita, Concepcion said: “Almost all economic frontliners [are now part of the A4 priority group]. During our meeting with NITAG composed of doctors, there were sectors not yet included such as BPO, et cetera.
“But we included them all since there are sectors not yet included. It seems they were all included. So almost all economic frontliners now in various sectors are part of the A4 already.”
The government’s inter-agency COVID-19 task force earlier announced that the following essential workers are part of the A4 sector:
— workers in commuter transport (land, air, and sea), including logistics
— public and private wet and dry market vendors
— frontline workers in groceries, supermarkets, delivery services
— workers in manufacturing for food, beverage, medical and pharmaceutical products
— frontline workers in food retail, including food service delivery
— frontline workers in private and government financial services
— frontline workers in hotels and accommodation establishments
— priests, rabbis, imams, and other religious leaders
— security guards/ personnel assigned in offices, agencies, and organizations identified in the list of priority industries/sectors
— frontline workers in private and government news media
— customer-facing personnel of telecoms, cable and internet service providers, electricity distribution and water distribution utilities
— frontline personnel in basic education and higher education institutions and agencies
— overseas Filipino workers, including those scheduled for deployment within two months
— frontline workers in law/justice, security, and social protection sectors
— frontline government workers engaged in the operations of government transport system, quarantine inspection; worker safety inspection, and other COVID-19 response activities
— frontline government workers in charge of tax collection, assessment of businesses for incentives, election, national ID, data collection personnel
— diplomatic community and Department of Foreign Affairs personnel in consular operations
— Department of Public Works and Highways personnel in charge of monitoring government infrastructure projects
Metro Manila share
Metro Manila, with a population of about 12 million people, received about one-third of the Philippines’ total COVID-19 vaccine supply so far, an official of the Department of Health said on Wednesday.
DOH Supply Chain Management Service Director Ariel Valencia said the Philippines had taken delivery of about 7.7 million COVID-19 shots, including those from Beijing-based Sinovac Biotech, Britain’s Oxford-AstraZeneca, US firm Pfizer, and Russian Gamaleya Institute.
He said around 36 percent of total supply or some 2.7 million doses were distributed to the 16 cities and one municipality of Metro
Manila, he said in a televised public briefing.
Metro Manila and surrounding provinces are the epicenter of the Philippine COVID-19 outbreak.
Metro Manila alone accounts for about 40 percent of the country’s economic output.
Government aims to achieve COVID-19 herd immunity in Metro Manila and 6 surrounding areas by November.
Jabs for students
Public health expert Dr. Tony Leachon, former adviser of the National Task Force Against COVID-19, on Wednesday urged the government to allocate Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccines to high school students and Sinovac jabs to essential workers.
Earlier, the government said that Pfizer and Moderna were preparing to seek emergency use authorizations for their COVID-19 vaccines to be administered to children.
Leachon said these could be used to enable the resumption of face-to-face classes.
“Plan for Pfizer’s arrival sometime in September with Moderna. You can use Pfizer and Moderna for the schools and other elderly citizens,” Leachon told ANC’s Headstart.
“Also, for the Indian variant, there will be only 3 vaccines addressing the Indian variant– Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca,” he said.
Leachon said the Philippines is set to receive another 500,000 doses of the Chinese vaccine this week and it still has an abundance of supply in the warehouse.
“Since you’re reopening the economy, use the Sinovac for essential workers. Anyway, it has been proven in Indonesia and other studies that it’s good just like Astra,” he said.
Leachon also proposed earlier to the government and the private sector to swap their AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine allocations for faster rollout.
The health expert made the recommendation after the government said millions of vaccine shots were near expiration.