Gatchalian wants gov't to allow COVID-19 vaccination of general public by June

Senator Sherwin Gatchalian on Tuesday suggested to move the general public up in the vaccine priority list as early as June and “start with those who are willing” in order to speed up the government’s vaccine rollout.

“We’re now in our third month of our vaccination program and from my observation, it’s about time to move the general public up in the priority program as early as June," Gatchalian said in an ANC interview.

"So meaning, allowing the general public, anyone who is willing to take their vaccine to be vaccinated as early as June,” he added.

The lawmaker cited the recent Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey which showed that only 32% of Filipinos are willing to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

He said the Philippines will have around 21 million doses by June and this will be enough to cover the 32% of the population who are willing to get inoculated based on the SWS survey.

“If you do the simple math, in NCR Plus, there are about 26 million in population and the clincher here is the recent SWS survey where it said that only 32% want to be vaccinated. The vaccine acceptance rate is only 32%. So if you multiply it to 25 million by 32%, you get about 8 million,” he said.

“Eight million is less than the 21 million inventory. So we have more than enough to vaccine the willing people who want to be vaccinated,” he further explained.

Gatchalian said waiting for those are still hesitant to get the COVID-19 vaccine will take a while and the only way to achieve herd immunity is to offer the jabs to those who want to avail it.

“To achieve herd immunity by the end of the year, we have to start with the willing, because they’re raring to go,” he said.

So far, the Philippine government has administered a total of 4,097,425 COVID-19 vaccine doses nationwide as of May 22.

An average of 162,513 COVID-19 jabs were administered daily, according to the National Task Force (NTF) against COVID-19.

The Philippines is eyeing the inoculation of 50 to 70 million individuals this year to achieve her immunity. —KBK, GMA News