FIRST DOSE. A man receives his first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine in San Juan City. A health official said herd immunity could not be achieved in the country anytime soon as it is highly dependent on the supplies of Covid-19 vaccines. (PNA photo by Joey Razon)
MANILA – Herd immunity could not be achieved in the country anytime soon as it is highly dependent on the supply of Covid-19 vaccines, a health official on Monday said.
“The main objective of our vaccine deployment at this outset is for us to reduce the number of severe infections, reduce hospitalizations and reduce deaths,” Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said in an online media forum.
Vergeire clarified that full vaccination against Covid-19 does not disqualify any person from getting the disease again and transmitting it to other people.
“Pero ang pangako sa atin ng bakuna, hindi na tayo magkakaroon ng (But vaccines give us the assurance that we won’t have the) severe form of disease and therefore hospitalization would be reduced, and the number of deaths would decrease,” she said.
Since the start of the vaccination rollout last March 1, an average of more than 100,000 jabs per day is administered nationwide.
“Last May 20, we had 229,000 jabs which happened on that day and the vaccine cluster says it wants to continue this rate and to have more. We have a target of 500,000 jabs per day to scale up the vaccination. Hopefully, with the incoming [vaccines] we can do that,” Vergeire said.
A total of 4,097425 doses of Covid-19 vaccine have been administered. Of this number, 3,147,486 received the first dose while the 949,939 corresponds to the second dose, data from the National Task Force Against Covid-19 show.
To date, four Covid-19 vaccines are being used in vaccination activities nationwide – AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Sinovac, and Sputnik V. (PNA)
