A TOP Cabinet official calling the shots for the government’s pandemic response hinted on the return to normalcy at a time when President Rodrigo Duterte is no longer in power.
During an online forum dubbed as “Sulong Pilipinas,” vaccine czar Carlito Galvez said that everything would be back to normal by 2023 even as he reiterated that the government is working doubly hard to vaccinate more Filipinos soon.
During the same forum organized by the Department of Finance (DOF), Galvez insisted that the only way that the country would be able to get things back on track is by achieving herd immunity by way of inoculating 70 million Filipinos.
Galvez, in his capacity as chief implementer of the National Task Force (NTF) Against COVID-19, added that the Duterte administration is undertaking all the necessary measures if only to hit its goal.
“We can achieve herd immunity by having the target of 70 million vaccinations this year. We have a lot of supply chain experts that have already done the simulations, and we have already prepared for that mass vaccination,” said Galvez. adding that the government remains well within the timetable it had set to vaccinate as many Filipinos as they could.
He likewise claimed that the government is also set to focus on building up the nation’s capacity to manufacture its own vaccines through partnerships with local and international pharmaceutical firms.
“For 2022, we will implement our pandemic exit strategy, where we will continually address and finally defeat this pandemic,” he added.
This strategy, he stressed, will still be utilized even if the COVID-19 pandemic comes to an end, as the country needs to protect itself from similar pandemics which may happen in the future.
“By 2023, we envision self-sufficiency and readiness for the next pandemic, and other disasters, with the modernization and integration of our healthcare system, in order to completely bridge our country from the valley of death from various fatal diseases,” he said.
Amid difficulties in securing vaccines, Galvez maintains that the government is keeping its strategy since day one of the pandemic — to pursue all available options, enabling it to steadily build the country’s vaccine portfolio.
“The Philippine situation now must be understood in the light of very limited global supply of vaccines, where every country in the world is seeking to gain vaccines, and where 80% of the available supply has already been taken by the richest countries,” Galvez said.
“Knowing there is limited supply (of vaccines), our policy is to build a portfolio of safe and effective vaccines, working with the private sector and our local government units, because gaining access to more vaccine manufacturers and partners enables us to secure more supply for our countrymen,” he added.
The Philippine government has only managed to secure 3.5 million doses COVID-19 vaccines despite signing up deals with AstraZeneca, Gamaleya, Moderna, Novavax and Sinovac.
Galvez earlier said that the government is also set to sign a deal this week with Johnson&Johnson for six to 10 million vaccine doses.
“We are expecting to receive more or less 140 million doses by the end of this year, excluding the 44 million doses from the COVAX facility,” Galvez said.
To date, the government has only managed to vaccinate 1.5 million Filipinos, which is just a little more than one percent of the country’s total population.