by Regina Elaine Vendivil
Vaccine czar Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. said that they will be prioritizing the urban centers for COVID-19 vaccine rollout during President Rodrigo Duterte’s taped State of the Nation Address last May 5, 2021.
Galvez stated that this will be their “strategic allocation” as the highly-populated areas have become the centers of COVID-19.
“Kapag nauna ang urban centers, mawawala po yung vulnerability ng ating bansa,” said Galvez.
The following is the ordered priority list of vaccine allocation:
- NCR + 6 Provinces
- Metro Cebu City
- Davao City
- Region 4A
- Region 3
- Cagayan de Oro City
- Baguio City
- Zamboanga City
- GenSan City
- Bacolod City
- Iloilo City
- Iligan City
- Region 11
- Region 7
- Region 10
- Region 6
- Region 8
- Region 2
- Region 9
- CAR
The list includes other regions with high active cases.
Galvez said that the NCR Plus, together with Davao City and Cebu City, will be their “center of gravity” which when given herd immunity by October or November, 60%-80% of the economy may recover.
“Considering that we have limited resources at limited vaccines, unahin natin ang center of gravity (centers of COVID-19),” he added.
At the same briefing, Galvez stated that the Philippines is expecting to get at least 1.3 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines from the COVAX facility, including the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
The country targets to inoculate up to 70 million Filipino adults or about two-thirds of its population this year in order to attain herd immunity against COVID-19.
As of May 4, Department of Health (DOH) reported that only about 320,586 Filipinos in the Philippines have been fully inoculated with both doses of COVID-19 vaccines with the country’s 7-day average of 36,500 daily vaccinations.
Sources:
HiLites ASHS 