President Rodrigo Duterte has pressed the military and police into service to airlift COVID-19 vaccines.
He ordered the measure for the country’s provinces to bypass “gridlocks” in vaccine distribution attributing them to local governments.
Compared to nearly 90 percent fully vaccinated adults in the capital region, only about 35 percent of adults in the country have received both jabs.
Duterte said in a meeting with pandemic advisers that, “(Supplies) will no longer pass through the provincial government because that would be another gridlock.”
National Task Force Against COVID-19 (NTF) chief implementer Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. earlier pushed local government units to be “flexible” in ramping up their vaccination efforts.
As of October 28, the country had 38 million doses of various brands of vaccines ready for distribution. Around 8 million of which were stored in national warehouses and 30 million in regional facilities.
The COVID-19 vaccines have a shelf life of up to six months.
