Solon questions disparity between vaccine deliveries, inoculation targets

Marikina City Representative Stella Quimbo on Tuesday questioned the disparity between the delivery of COVID-19 vaccines and the government's inoculation targets.

During a House Committee on Health inquiry, Quimbo argued that the planned vaccine delivery was not enough to vaccinate 25.1 million people in the senior citizen, health professional, and people with comorbidities priority groups.

"Particularly by end of June, the planned inoculated individuals is 25.1 million versus, based on your deliveries, ang kaya lamang ay 7 million so ang laki po ng disparity. Eighteen million ang disparity or 36 million doses," said Quimbo.

(The plan is to inoculate 25.1 million people. But you can only deliver 7 million vaccines. That's a huge disparity. That's 18 million people or 36 million doses.)

"So sana tignan ninyo nang mabuti because that alone would suggest na imposible na makuha yung 70 million inoculated individuals by end of December," the lawmaker added.

(This needs to be examined carefully because that alone would suggest that it is impossible to meet the target of inoculating 70 million people by the end of December.)

Parallel vaccinations

Health Undersecretary Myrna Cabotaje said that this was the first time she has heard about such a disparity, but they would investigate the matter.

However, Cabotaje countered that simultaneous vaccinations could help reach the national government's 70 million target.

"This is the first time I saw the vaccines arriving but we will check whether the targets will fit. There will be parallel vaccination, right? Hindi na natin hihintayin na matapos yung isang group, we can go to the next priority group," Cabotaje told Quimbo during the hearing.

(We will not have to innoculate everyone in one priority group before starting inoculations with the next group.)

Quimbo dismissed this, saying the "constraint is delivery of vaccines" and simultaneous immunizations will not solve the problem.

Bayan Muna Rep. Ferdinand Gaite, for his part, asked if the government had prepared for the rollout of millions of doses, citing the national government's target of 3 million to 5 million vaccine shots per week during August.

Cabotaje said they expected more vaccination sites to open and would rely on the local government unit and private sector to fast-track the

"Vaccination sites are 2,400, and we have registered 6,500 total sites so ibig sabihin hindi pa nagagamit ang ibang vaccination sites. There will be challenges but we hope to capitalize on our experience. Ano pa ba ang kailangang gawin para mapabilis and we are relying not only on the LGU who should be leading the vaccination but also on our private sectors," the health official said.

(Vaccination sites are 2,400, and we have registered 6,500 total sites so that means we have not even started using all the vaccination sites. There will be challenges but we hope to capitalize on our experience. What else needs to be done to accelerate vaccinations? We are relying not only on the LGU who should be leading the vaccination but also on our private sectors.)

So far, vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. said 1,233,500 out of 1,525,600 total vaccine shots were rolled out in the first quarter of 2021.  — DVM, GMA News