Former Sen. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. is looking forward for a better Christmas season for Filipinos this year, with more citizens vaccinated and protected against contracting severe COVID-19.
Marcos also said that herd immunity is achieved when 80 to 90 percent of the population has been vaccinated. Malacanang is hopeful that the country would be closer to achieving that with the vaccination of the general public set to begin in October.
“Hopefully our Christmas will be good, more of our countrymen will be vaccinated and protected against the serious case of Covid by December. And we can gradually reopen our economy,” he explained.
The former lawmaker called for a more systematic and efficient vaccination roll out, with provincial local governments equipped with the necessary logistics and cold chain requirements for the vaccines.
He also said that the Department of Health should coordinate with LGUs to ensure that they have sufficient number of vaccinators for the roll out. He added the Department of Energy should ensure that there is a steady supply of power or have generators on standby in case there are power outages.
“When the vaccination of people under the priority list started, we saw that LGUs are very capable of rolling out the vaccination program. They only stop rolling out when there is no vaccine supply available. Other LGUs with less capacity to vaccinate, help to increase their capacity,” Marcos noted.
Since March 1, around 69.62 million doses of various Covid vaccines have landed in the country and by end of October, the total number of doses will reach around 100-million with the scheduled arrival of several more batches of various vaccines.
As of Sept. 27, about 20.58 million people or 26.68% of the country’s eligible population have been fully vaccinated while 23.78 million have received their first dose. In Metro Manila, more than seven million or 72.43% of the eligible population have been fully vaccinated. Likewise, the cities of Baguio, Cebu, Iloilo, and Davao have already vaccinated more than 50% of their target population.