Gov't eyes vaccinating 90% of students vs. COVID-19 —Galvez

Vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. on Thursday said the government is targeting to vaccinate 90% of the student population against COVID-19 for a smooth conduct of face-to-face classes.

“Yun talaga ang [gusto] namin, gusto talaga naming mabuo yung aming plano na at least 90% po sa ating mga estudyante ay talagang mabakunahan para at least  wala tayong problema sa face-to-face,” Galvez told Super Radyo dzBB in an interview.

(That really is our goal, to have at least 90% of students vaccinated so we won’t have problems regarding face-to-face classes.)

Galvez said vaccination among the youth aged 12 to 17 has been good, and that there are even requests from students and parents to include them in the coverage of second booster shots.

As of Wednesday, the National Vaccination Operations Center said around 2.5 million of the 14 million 5-11 years old kids and  9.3 million of the 11.4 million 12-17 years old kids are fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

Booster shots

Regarding booster shots for five to 11 years old, Galvez said the government will observe first as the US Food and Drug Administration has just recently authorized Pfizer and BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine to be given as booster for the age group.

Galvez earlier said the administration of COVID-19 vaccine to five to 11 years old was relatively slow.

As of May 3, the Department of Education said 25,668 or 56.89% of public schools nationwide have already gone back to in-person learning amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

BARMM

In the same interview, Galvez said vaccination rate in Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) has slightly increased following the conduct of Special Vaccination Days (SVD).

“Ngayon nagsimula na ang yung ating special vaccination day sa BARMM so tumataas na rin po paunti-paunti [Our SVD already started in BARMM so the vaccination rate is slightly increasing],” he said. —KBK, GMA News