Senator Win Gatchalian is stated that the government should allow the general public to get the vaccine starting June.
“We’re now in the third month of our vaccination program and from my observation, it’s about time to move the general public up in the priority program as early as June,” he said.
“So meaning, allowing the general public, anyone who is willing to take their vaccine, to be vaccinated as early as June,” the senator added.
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Gatchalian thinks that the country will have more vaccines in its inventory starting June. He says there is a need to aggressively vaccinate residents belonging to the National Capital Region.
“If you do the simple math, in NCR Plus, there are about 26 million in population and the clincher here is the recent SWS (Social Weather Stations) survey where it said that only 32 percent are willing to be vaccinated,” he said.
“Eight million is less than the 21 million inventory, so we have more than enough to vaccinate the willing people who want to be vaccinated,” he added.
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Gatchalian also laments the vaccine hesitancy rate among senior citizens, the second in line in terms of the vaccine priority list.
“And true enough, 20 percent of our senior citizens went out to get the vaccine, To wait for the 80 percent to go out, we’re [taking] time, it might take a while. While the rest of the public want to get their vaccines already. And to achieve herd immunity by the end of the year, we have to start with the willing, because they’re raring to go,” he said.
Vaccine Czar Carlito Galvez said that the general public may be vaccinated by August. (TDT)