FOUR days away from the 1st 100 days of the Marcos administration, the Department of Health (DOH) yesterday reported that it is still about five percent away from meeting the target number of individuals with booster shots against coronavirus disease (COVID-19).
In a press conference, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said there are only 19.7 million or around 25 percent of the 78 million eligible population that have been administered with booster shots, as of October 4.
“As of now, we still lack around 5 percent, which is equivalent to around 3.6 million individuals,” said the DOH officer-in-charge.
“That is how much we still need to cover for us to reach the 30 percent recalibrated target by October 8,” Vergeire said.
The DOH has reset its booster shot target of 30 percent or 23.4 million of the 78 million eligible population by the first 100 days of the Marcos administration.
This is lower than its previous target of 39 million Filipinos with up to date vaccination come October 8, or 50 percent of the 78 million eligible population.
Last week, Vergeire attributed the low uptake in booster shots to the fact that people have already “moved on” from the COVID-19 pandemic.
“People have moved on. People have in their minds the pandemic fatigue. People are confident already with the first two doses they have. That is what people believe now,” Vergeire said last week.
With the first 100 days already set to be marked on Saturday, Vergeire said they will be relying further to the help of their local government partners and urged local executives to continue incentivizing the booster shot rollout.
“We are seeing the efforts of the LGUs, wherein incentives are being given by our local governments to those who wish or will be having themselves vaccinated,” she said.
“This is a good practice and, hopefully, other LGUs will be following and doing this kind of incentivization for our public so that they shall get encouraged to get vaccinated,” added Vergeire.
