Galvez optimistic PH daily vaccination rate to increase in next months

National Task Force (NTF) against Covid-19 chief Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. on Wednesday expressed optimism that the country’s daily vaccination rate will soon increase with more jab supplies arriving in the remaining months of 2021.

This, after the country, has recorded a decrease in the average daily vaccination rate in the previous weeks.

“ So far, we see higher prospects in October until the end of the year and the vaccination rate will go up,” Galvez said in a media briefing in Taytay, Rizal.

Galvez, also the country’s vaccine czar, cited a “significant” reduction of the active cases in the past weeks, allowing the government to expedite the national vaccination program.

He said the vaccination rate has slightly slowed down as healthcare workers opted to go back to treatment facilities to attend to positive Covid-19 patients.

The NTF earlier noted a decrease by as much as 12,000 in the average daily vaccination rate last month due to a surge in cases.

“ There’s a slight decrease in our active cases and we hope and pray to God, that our cases would really go down, at least, our healthcare workers, they will shift their focus on the vaccination,” Galvez said partly in Filipino.

He said the volume of Covid-19 vaccines that is being delivered in the country is also increasing.

“Once we received the additional volumes, our vaccination capacity will also increase,” he said.

NTF deputy chief and testing czar Secretary Vince Dizon also cited the challenging vaccine rollout amid the surge of cases last month.

“Because our healthcare workers who were also the vaccinators are really the ones taking care of the services in the hospitals,” he said in Filipino.

He added the stalled vaccine deliveries in the first two weeks of September also affected the country’s daily vaccination rate.

“So this October, our supplies are increasing, the cases are slowing down and our healthcare workers are slowly but surely going back to the vaccination centers,” Dizon said in Filipino.

He also cited the country has recorded about 630,000 doses administered as of Tuesday.

The Philippines has received 77.411 million doses, with additional 1.015 million Pfizer doses will be arriving in the country Wednesday night.

A total of 47.778 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines have been utilized since the vaccination rollout began on March 1.