Palace backs DOH effort to refocus on COVID-19 vaccinations, not daily cases report

Malacañang on Tuesday defended the Department of Health's (DOH's) decision to ditch the daily announcement of COVID-19 cases, explaining that it was part of the government's effort to refocus on COVID-19 vaccinations.

"The reason behind it is that our focus right now is the COVID-19 vaccination. For the first quarter of 2022, we are eyeing to fully vaccinate 77 million," acting presidential spokesperson Karlo Nograles said.

"With ramped-up vaccination, the transmission will still be there, but we may see mild and asymptomatic COVID-19 cases so our focus will be vaccination, as well as hospital utilization rate as well as severe or moderate COVID-19 cases. Those are what we will be monitoring."

Nograles reiterated the DOH's position that the COVID-19 case updates could still be accessed from the government's COVID-19 tracker.

"With ramped up COVID-19 vaccination, it is not enough. That is why we are constantly reminding the public that aside from vaccination, we should wear [face] mask, observe hygiene and social distancing," said the spokesperson.

Nograles said Tuesday that around 47.8 million Filipinos were fully vaccinated against COVID-19 so far.

This figure was short of the government target of fully vaccinating 54 million Filipinos against COVID-19 by year-end. — DVM, GMA News