The Department of Health told a media briefing on Friday that government plans to administer 15 million Covid-19 doses for the three-day nationwide vaccination drive—dubbed “Bayanihan, Bakunahan”—from November 29 to December 1. On Saturday, the National Task Force Against Covid-19 and the National Vaccination Operations Center (NVOC) issued a joint statement saying the government has lowered its target output for the national vaccination drive due to a shortage of syringes for Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines and other ancillary supplies.
“From the original plan of administering 15 million Covid-19 doses for the three-day activity, we have decided to administer 9 million jabs. Hence, the daily national throughput target will be 3 million doses,” the NTF and NVOC said.
As of November 27, more than 35.5 million Filipinos have been fully vaccinated, and 45.3 million have received their first dose. We are still a long way from vaccinating the majority of the population. The good news is that another nationwide vaccination drive will take place on December 15 to 17, which will help the government achieve its goal of completing the vaccination of 54 million Filipinos by the end of the year.
With the emergence of new Covid variants that could drive the pandemic threat to a new level, we need to do a series of nationwide vaccination and booster campaigns. Health experts said at least 70 percent of the population must get the jab before we achieve herd immunity.
South African scientists last week identified a new version of the coronavirus that they say is behind a recent spike in Covid-19 infections in Gauteng, the country’s most populous province. From just over 200 new confirmed cases per day in recent weeks, South Africa saw the number of new daily cases surge to 2,465 on Thursday. Struggling to explain the sudden rise in cases, scientists studied virus samples from the outbreak and discovered the new variant.
On Friday, the World Health Organization declared the recently discovered B.1.1.529 strain of Covid-19, first detected in southern Africa, to be a variant of concern and named it Omicron. The agency warned that Omicron could pose greater risk than the Delta variant, which was first detected in India and currently ravaging European countries. Health officials are not sure where Omicron actually originated, but it has been seen in travellers from Southern Africa to Australia, Belgium, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Britain, Israel,and Hong Kong. WHO also said early evidence on the variant has shown an increased risk of reinfection compared to other highly transmissible variants, indicating that people who contracted Covid-19 and recovered could catch it again with Omicron.
Following the WHO announcement, major travel destinations including the US, European Union, Canada, Japan and Australia swiftly moved to block flights from African countries to prevent the spread of the new variant. The Philippines also temporarily suspended flights from countries with cases of the Omicron variant.
We are still living in dangerous times. Most everyone should know the drill by now. If we are going to contain the spread of the new Covid variants, we are going to have to rely on the same public health measures that have served us well up until now. We hope the Omicron variant won’t reach Philippine shores. But assuming it does, there’s no need to panic. Even if it is more infectious than the Delta variant, your risk of being infected substantially decreases if you get vaccinated, avoid crowded places, stay home, wear face mask, keep your distance and wash your hands.