Proactive measures have enabled the Philippines to defeat the highly transmissible Delta variant of the coronavirus, according to Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr.

The vaccine czar and chief implementer of the National Task Force Against Covid-19 said on Friday that Filipinos can look forward to better times ahead.

“Our perception and anticipation in order to have a better Christmas and a good fourth quarter, we made some drastic decision to really locking down early so that we will have a preparation for the coming of the Delta [variant]. Now, we have seen that we were able to defeat Delta,” Galvez said in an interview during the arrival of 698,600 doses of the private sector-procured AstraZeneca vaccine at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 3 in Pasay City.

Amid the decline in Covid-19 cases – 66,838 active cases on Friday from as high as more than 100,000 during the last two months – Galvez cited the need to further scale up the country’s vaccination program to finally halt the virus transmission.

“We are focusing ourselves on the massive vaccination of our population. Our strategy is vax to the max,” he said.

At the height of the Delta variant transmission, Galvez said the government scaled up hospitalization and treatment capacity and intensified the Prevent-Detect-Isolate-Treat-Reintegrate strategy to prevent community transmission and surge.

“So, that’s how we have done it and we now are trying to hire more health care workers so that we can prevent or even prepare for the incoming surge. As much as possible, we are trying to prevent it to happen again,” he said partly in Filipino.

Galvez thanked the private sector for relentlessly helping the government push for proactive pandemic response.

“The contribution of the private sector is very enormous in terms of our continuous fight against Covid-19. All the business organizations are trying to mobilize,” he said.