25 Hunyo 2021, Biyernes
In the News…
10 cities included in vac priority list
“And so this is the pattern, it starts at the NCR and moves to the provinces…so, we vaccinate NCR, we prevent virus from traveling to the provinces and this is especially important now because we are building a wall around Philippines by vaccinating NCR+8,” Presidential spokesman Herminio Roque Jr. said government has placed at least 10 cities in its priority list for vaccine distribution to help them contain spread of COVID-19, especially the highly contagious and possibly deadlier Delta variant.
Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF). identified the cities as Bacolod, Iloilo, Baguio, Cagayan de Oro, Zamboanga, Dumaguete, Tuguegarao, General Santos, Naga and Legazpi, citing high incidence of COVID-19 cases in these areas.
In Cagayan de Oro, for example, Roque said IATF is sending ventilators to boost hospitals’ capacity to aid seriously ill patients.
According to Roque, the highly urbanized cities dubbed as “10 Plus” are included in NCR Plus category now being monitored by IATF due to high incidence of COVID-19 cases.
Roque is supportive to the call of Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) chairman Benhur Abalos to maintain priority status for Metro Manila since it is the center of commerce in the country.
He added current measures against COVID-19 as well as the ongoing vaccination should be further intensified due to possibility of surge in infection.
Roque underscored importance of containing virus in Metro Manila, where number of cases remains substantial.
He also assured public vaccines provided in vaccination sites, including those in SM MOA Arena in Pasay City, are safe and effective.
Roque said unscrupulous individuals were reportedly distributing flyers, claiming that vaccines are fake.
At the briefing, UST professor Fr. Nic Austriaco, a molecular biologist, cited the need for greater protection against the new variants, especially Delta and Delta Plus which mutated in India.
Part of an exit strategy, Austriaco said, is to build COVID-proof wall around National Capital Region by vaccinating majority of people in NCR area.
Austriaco emphasized that NCR+8 strategy “does not mean excluding the rest of the country.”
“It means prioritizing NCR+8 but there are still ongoing vaccinations to inoculate the most at risk in the rest of the country and the distribution now, from what I can get from the data, is about 65 percent to the NCR+8 and 35 percent to the rest of the country,” he said, referring to the vaccination distribution strategy.
To achieve containment, Austriaco said about 40 to 50 percent of the population should be inoculated. For herd immunity, he added target is 70 to 80 percent of the entire population.
“And containment will protect us against future surges, it will allow further reopening and it will allow ‘no mask’ gathering of vaccinated persons and I pointed out that outbreaks will still occur but they will not spread rapidly…so, the surge potential of pandemic will be severely diminished,” he said.
“It is really attainable at this time that we will reach containment if not herd immunity in NCR+8 by Christmas and this is something that we do together,” Austriaco said.
If containment is attained, he said government can relax minimum health standards. There will be no more requirements for mask, social distancing, if herd immunity is achieved, In the same way, today, we do not test or quarantine people from measles because we already have herd immunity for measles in Manila, in the entire country…and I pointed out last week that we should encourage our kababayans to imagine ‘no mask Christmas, he said.
Meanwhile, government is re-calibrating and deploying more SARS-CoV-2 vaccines to the Visayas and Mindanao regions as NCR is now classified as low risk.
At a press conference following a vaccination site visit with medical experts from Israel in Taguig City, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said vaccines originally allocated to Metro Manila would be distributed to Visayas and Mindanao.
“It’s good that NCR is now at low-risk classification based on the daily attack rate or number of new cases per day and also percentage increase in the number of cases has started to go down, which means transmission of the case is slowing down…therefore, it will give us more comfort to redeploy vaccines to some areas which have been originally allocated for NCR,” Duque disclosed.
“We have to be agile, we have to be able to adjust, given situation of the vaccine scarcity…we have to be sensitive to areas experiencing spike or a surge so we need to redeploy every now and then,” Duque explained.
Aside from vaccines, he said, DOH is also providing more medicines and medical supply to the Visayas and Mindanao.
Health Undersecretary Myrna Cabotaje said they have been getting requests for additional vaccines even after DOH allocated vaccines to various areas based on prioritization.
Cabotaje said there is still limited supply but the government is exerting efforts to deploy more vaccines.
ISKUP! 