Vaccination, people’s cooperation help drop Covid-19 cases

MANILA – An official of the National Task Force (NTF) Against Covid-19 has attributed the decreasing Covid-19 infections in the country to the government’s vaccination efforts and cooperation of the public to combat the pandemic.

“Because of our vaccination efforts, our observation of the minimum health standard, we’ve seen the results, the number of cases is now low. We can already see that we will have a Merry Christmas,” NTF head of strategic communications on current operations Assistant Secretary Wilben Mayor said as he welcomed the arrival of 255,200 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine at the NAIA Terminal 1 in Parañaque City on Thursday.

He said the latest shipment of Covid-19 vaccine was procured by the private sector.

Mayor echoed NTF Chief Implementer Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr.’s statement that the best Christmas gift the unvaccinated Filipinos can give their families and communities is to have themselves vaccinated against Covid-19.

He urged the unvaccinated Filipinos to get their Covid-19 vaccine shots in the next national vaccination drive on Dec. 15-17.

“We have the next National Vaccination Days on the 15th, 16th and 17th and once again we encourage our fellow Filipinos who have yet to receive the vaccine to get vaccinated. All vaccines that arrive in the country are effective and efficient,” he said.

He said some 10.2 million Filipinos were inoculated during the first national vaccination days dubbed as “Bayanihan, Bakunahan” held from Nov. 29 to Dec. 3.

Mayor said the government is looking to administer some 7 million doses in the next nationwide vaccination drive.

The number of daily coronavirus infections in the country has stayed below 400, with only 370 fresh cases logged on Wednesday.

The latest bulletin from the Department of Health showed the active case tally is at 12,510, down from 13,026 recorded on Tuesday when the country posted 356 new infections — the lowest single-day number of infections in 17 months.

Another 861 new recoveries, meanwhile, raised the total tally to 2,773,322, or 97.8 percent of the total case count of 2,835,593 since the start of the pandemic last year.

The death toll has reached 49,761 with 171 new deaths.