The Philippine Government Considers to Hold a Monthly COVID-19 Vaccination Day

The government is considering vaccination days every month to hasten inoculation in the Philippines.

This is to further prevent severe COVID-19 infections to individuals especially in those special cases such as senior citizens, pregnant women, and people with comorbidities.

Department of Health (DOH) Undersecretary Myrna Cabotaje stated that the vaccination drives in the country may be focusing on certain priority groups such as senior citizens as the government aims to speed the vaccination among elder citizens.

Cabotaje stated, “Yes, we’re thinking of various strategies, maybe we can make it monthly for specific areas or for specific targets.”

Cabotaje added, “We are seeing that we need to vaccinate more senior citizens, so maybe we can designate a national vaccination day for senior citizens only.”

The government held a national vaccine drive recently from February 10 to 11 with a goal to vaccinate at least 5 million people.

According to Cabotaje, as of February 12, only 1.5 million individuals were vaccinated during the drive, pushing the government to extend the inoculation until February 18.

Cabotaje noted, “We want to give more opportunities to our fellow Filipinos to get vaccinated.”

Moreover, Cabotaje expressed that there are 2.5 million senior citizens and over 220,000 person with comorbidities who has yet to be given COVID-19 jabs.

Among the efforts that the government has been executing is to hasten the vaccination in the mentioned priority groups are going house to house to reach weak individuals that can no longer travel to the vaccination sites.

Cabotaje stated that they tend to make vaccinations sites nearer and the process easier in order to give convenience to senior citizens.

Cabotaje mentioned that about 61.4 million Filipinos are currently fully vaccinated while 9 million are already done with their booster shots.