Fewer Covid-19 cases ‘fruit’ of labor: NTF exec

MANILA – Fewer coronavirus cases recorded in the past weeks are the national government’s “fruit” of labor in the pandemic response, an official of the National Task Force Against Covid-19 said Thursday.

NTF Against Covid-19 sub-task force on current operations head Assistant Secretary Wilben Mayor encouraged those who have yet to receive their vaccine to get inoculated.

“As you can see we now have very few cases, this is the fruit of our labors for the past months and we want to sustain this and the only way to do this is to be vaccinated and to observe the minimum health standards,” Mayor said in an interview during the arrival of 1,017,900 doses of Pfizer vaccine, procured by the national government through the Asian Development Bank, at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 3.

Mayor said the latest shipment brings to about 151.4 million doses the total vaccine doses delivered to the country since February.

Also present during the arrival was United States Acting Deputy Chief of Mission David “Chip” Gamble who congratulated the country on its improving pandemic response.

“They’ve been telling me about the major hospitals, many of whom have zero patients. It just means the Philippines is winning the fight against Covid. We’re on our way to having a merry Christmas and a happy new year and I’m glad American vaccines can be a part of this,” Gamble told reporters.

Meantime, NTF chief implementer and vaccine czar Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. sees a better Christmas ahead following the success of the first national vaccination days from November 29 to December 3.

In a span of five days, the country administered 10,254,560 doses, which is equivalent to a daily average jab rate of 2,050,912 doses, the highest recorded since the national vaccination program was rolled out in March.

“Kung matatandaan niyo, nangako po si Pangulong Rodrigo Duterte na magkakaroon tayo ng mas masayang Pasko ngayong taong ito. Sa patuloy na pagbaba ng mga kaso ng Covid-19 sa ating bansa na kung saan ang ating positivity rate ay mas mababa pa sa 3 percent, natitiyak namin na maisasakatuparan ang pangako ng ating mahal na Pangulo (President Rodrigo Duterte made a promise of a better Christmas this year. As the number of cases continues to dip, with positivity rate less than 3 percent, we assure of the promise of a better Christmas),” Galvez said during the culmination program of the Bayanihan, Bakunahan vaccination program at a mall in Mandaluyong City Thursday.

The Philippines has recorded an average daily caseload of below 500 over the past several days, a significant drop from the thousands of daily cases registered a few months ago driven by the highly transmissible Delta variant.

But with the country’s expanded vaccination rollout and more responsive pandemic response and mitigation measures, the government has managed to bring down the nation’s infection rate to a threshold set by the World Health Organization.

As of December 7, the Philippines has administered a total of 93,687,341 vaccine doses. Of this number, 53,841,469 have been given as first doses while 39,236,194 are fully vaccinated.

Galvez said he is confident the Philippines would achieve population protection before the year ends by realizing its target of fully vaccinating at least 54 million Filipinos.

He added that the aggressive rollout of the government’s vaccination program is among the measures undertaken by the government to prepare the country for the entry of the Omicron variant.

Galvez also urged Filipinos to take the opportunity to get vaccinated on the second leg of the national vaccination days from December 15 to 17 as part of government efforts to scale up the vaccination throughput.