The government is now eyeing to ramp up the government’s Covid-19 vaccination drive amid recent reports of rising virus cases.
President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. made the pronouncement when asked about the government’s intervention to stop the spread of Covid-19.
He noted the Covid-19 jabs would hopefully help vulnerable groups whose immune system may have been weakened by intense heat during the summer season.
“We will have to conduct again, especially for young people, we’ll have to conduct again a vaccination push to reduce cases,” Marcos said in an interview with the media onboard PR 001 en route to Washington D.C. for an official working visit.
Last March, the Department of Health (DOH) reported the country still has 15.3 million Covid-19 jabs.
Of which, 7 million were “quarantined” pending an assessment from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) if their shelf life can be extended, while the remaining 8 million are set to expire from March to October.
The President said they are also studying the possibility of bringing back the face mask mandate to curb Covid spread.
“So we’ll look at it. We will check if there is guidance from the IATF [Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases] and the DOH on this,” Marcos said.
Last week, the OCTA Research Group reported there are now more people who are testing positive for Covid-19 in Metro Manila.
Despite the rising trend, Marcos is confident the government could still contain the spread of Covid.
“Although the rate of increase is growing, the baseline [of infected cases] is still small, so hopefully we’re still…we’re still going to be able to [contain] it,” Marcos said.
