The Department of Education has launched a COVID-19 vaccination campaign for its teaching and non-teaching personnel to help ramp up immunization against the respiratory illness in the country.
In a statement Thursday, the department said its “Vacc2School: Ligtas na Bakuna, Para sa Balik-Eskwela” campaign aimed to educate and engage education stakeholders on the government’s COVID-19 vaccination drive. DepEd also created a microsite that would serve as a repository of campaign materials.
In related developments:
• Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Raymund Villafuerte on Thursday supported calls to ramp up the country’s daily COVID-19 testing to 130,000 to 160,000 tests per day, using a combination of real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests and rapid antigen tests in high-risk areas such as the National Capital Region (NCR) and selected adjacent provinces in the “NCR Plus” bubble.
• Health expert Dr. Tony Leachon urged the national government to speed up its immunization program against COVID-19, as some vaccines will expire next month.
• The Big Dome, or the Smart Araneta Coliseum, has been identified as one of Quezon City’s mega vaccination sites, according to Mayor Joy Belmonte. She said inoculations would begin there on Saturday, May 15.
Education Secretary Leonor Briones, a COVID-19 survivor who was recently inoculated against the disease, said: “I am encouraging everyone, especially the teachers, and other education personnel to participate in this campaign, and make informed decisions on vaccination to further intensify and advance our chances of safely returning to school.”
“It is not only a matter of protecting your personal rights, it is also a matter of protecting the lives and health of children which is also entrusted to our care,” she said.
Briones has said COVID-19 vaccination of public-school teachers and personnel may start in June.
She also urged education workers covered by other priority groups—health workers, senior citizens, and people with comorbidities— o receive the jab through their local governments.
The Philippines eyes to vaccinate 70 million of its population by the end of the year to achieve herd immunity. As of May 11, 2.5 million doses have been administered in the country.
Meanwhile, Villafuerte said the government could ramp up its COVID-19 testing at a lower cost by increasing its use of the relatively inexpensive rapid antigen test in both point-of-care and laboratory settings to detect the SARS-CoV2, the virus that is responsible for this deadly disease.
Test results are available in about 15 minutes, compared to the costlier but gold standard RT-PCR, the turnaround time of which usually takes 2 to 3 days, he added.
“We need to ramp up testing to offset amid the global surge of faster spreading coronavirus variants and the current hiccup in Big Pharma’s production of vaccines that has prevented our government at this point from speeding up its mass vaccination plan to achieve herd immunity by yearend,” Villafuerte said.
“Rapid antigen tests provide us the solution to increase our testing efforts from the current 50,000 to 55,000 tests per day to at least 130,000 as called for by health experts.”
Villafuerte’s statement was in support of the recommendation of former Health Secretary Dr. Esperanza Cabral for the government to increase COVID-19 testing per day to between 130,000 and 160,000.
In a report on “24 Oras”, Leachon said that the government has so far reported 36,000 average daily vaccinations only, which is far from the ideal daily average of 200,000.
Leachon said the country’s average number of vaccinations is still a low target, considering 1.5 million shots of British-Swedish drugmaker AstraZeneca’s vaccine are expected to expire by June 30.
Leachon said this is impossible to distribute unless the government asks help from the private sector and local governments to address the bottlenecks.
“There are a lot of patients who want to get vaccinated, but they have yet to be scheduled for inoculation. It is a waste,” he said in Filipino.
Leachon also urged the government to form a strategic plan to address the disparity between vaccinations and vaccine supplies.
The health expert suggested that the government look for 5,000 vaccination sites instead of creating a mega vaccination site that could possibly become a super spreader.
Leachon said vaccinations can be done at parking lots or conducted through drive-through.
Also, the health expert urged the government to include people in the A4 category— government and economic frontliners—on the list of people to be given the current AstraZeneca supply.
Health Undersecretary Myrna Cabotaje earlier said the A4 category cannot be included in the distribution of the 1.5 million AstraZeneca doses from COVAX facility, as these have been allocated to those in the A1 to A3 categories. She said the A4 workers can be vaccinated once more supplies come in.
Cabotaje also said the country has so far recorded an average number of more than 67,000 vaccinations per day.
Health Secretary Francisco Duque III has vowed to use all AstraZeneca doses with the help of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA).
According to the National COVID-19 Vaccine Operations Center, 1.5 million AstraZeneca doses will expire on June 30 and 525,000 doses will expire on July 31.
Meanwhile, Mayor Belmonte lauded the Araneta Group for allowing the city to use its facility in solidarity with the city’s goal of rolling out COVID-19 vaccines to priority groups faster.
“We estimate that the Big Dome will be capable of delivering 1,000 to 1,500 COVID shots per day,” she noted.
Measures for indoor settings would be installed to ensure the safety of everyone who plan to get their jabs at the facility.
“The QC LGU is grateful to the Araneta Group for offering the Big Dome to this program for free. It is a suitable site for a massive and critical government health drive since it offers adequate space and accessibility to both our healthcare workers and the public,” the city mayor said.
“This will help us strengthen our efforts to provide our QCitizens the protection they need against COVID-19. The faster we vaccinate our people, the sooner we can achieve economic recovery,” she added.
Margie Santos, Business Permits and Licensing Department head, said the Araneta Group also committed to provide their own medical personnel who would help inoculate people 60 years and older and individuals with serious health conditions or those belonging to A1 to A3 priority groups.
“We’re grateful to our partners in the private sector as they continue to work with us in order to provide us with spacious and comfortable venues and to augment our manpower resources,” she said.
The Tzu Chi Medical Foundation Philippines, a non-profit charitable organization, is also helping by sending their volunteer doctors, nurses and staff to city’s vaccination sites, Belmonte said.
She said she is looking forward to the success of their tie-up similar to the partnerships crafted earlier on as “we need an all-of-city approach to overcome COVID-19 and ensure the speedy recovery of our economy.”