'No basis' to say Philippines will be among last in Asia to reach herd immunity, says Duque

Health Secretary Francisco Duque III on Thursday said there was “no basis” for a think tank’s projection that the Philippines will be among the last in Asia to achieve herd immunity from COVID-19.

United Kingdom-based think tank Pantheon Macroeconomics earlier said the Philippines could be among the last countries in Asia to reach herd immunity based on the current pace of its inoculation campaign.

“I think they should review their math or their calculator probably doesn’t have good batteries,” Duque said in a briefing with visiting Israeli vaccination experts in Taguig City.

“There is no basis for that statement of the self-proclaimed experts. I don’t know where they’re coming from.”

Duque said the Philippines will meet its goal of vaccinating 70 million Filipinos in 140 days if it manages to administer 500,000 doses daily.

According to testing czar Vince Dizon, however, the country’s biggest single-day number of doses administered is only around 353,000

“You have to understand that the jab rate is largely dependent primarily on supply. Kung wala kang bakuna, wala kang ija-jab [If there are no vaccines, you don’t have anything to administer],” Dizon said.

“[Officials have] been helping out our LGUs… to make their process more efficient and allow them to jab faster and jab more people and that has resulted in a tremendous increase in our jabbing capacity in the last two to three weeks,” he added.

The Palace has also dismissed the think tank’s projection, arguing that “we will prove them wrong.” 

The Philippines has inoculated over 6.2 million individuals as of June 20, 2.1 million of whom have been fully vaccinated.  —KBK, GMA News