It won’t take a month to vaccinate all health workers – Palace

MANILA, Philippines — It will not take a month for the government to vaccinate all health workers against Covid-19, Malacañang said Sunday as it eyes to start the vaccination on Feb. 15.

Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque assured that the government has already identified health workers who will get priority to receive the Pfizer BioNTech and AstraZeneca vaccines from the World Health Organization-led COVAX facility.

“Well, oo sa totoo lang po, dahil inaasahan nating magsisimula na tayo sa a-kinse. Mayroon na pong mga listahan iyan. Sa katunayan iyong mga medical frontliners, kumpleto na po ang mga pangalan nila,” Roque said in an interview over dzBB.

(Well, in fact, since we are expecting to start on the 15th, we already have a list. The list of names of medical frontliners is already complete.)

“So inaasahan po natin na lahat po noong mga nasa paunang frontliners natin na mahigit-kumulang mga 1.4 million, lahat naman po iyan ay mabibigyan, kasi limang milyong mahigit iyong AstraZeneca na darating din ano – also within the month,” he added.

Apart from the 5 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, the Philippines will also receive 117,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to be given to some 50,000 health workers, with two doses each.

READ: PH to get 5.6 million doses of Pfizer, AstraZeneca vaccine in Q1

“Inaasahan po natin na sa buong linggong ito, sa buong buwan na darating ay at least lahat iyong medical frontliners at saka iyong immediate na may priority ay at least nasimulan na. Pero definitely, hindi po aabot ng isang buwan para matapos natin ang lahat ng mga medical frontliners,” Roque assured.

(We are expecting that this week, this coming month, the vaccination of at least all the medical frontliners and immediate priority groups will already begin. But definitely, it won’t take a month for us to finish vaccination all medical frontliners.)

The government has already released an expanded list of priority groups for the Covid-19 vaccination, which includes persons with comorbidities, medical students, janitors, and more.

LIST: Priority groups for government’s Covid-19 vaccination program

Health workers of Covid-19 referral hospitals Philippine General Hospital in Manila, Lung Center of the Philippines and East Avenue Medical Center in Quezon City, and Dr. Jose Natalio Rodriguez Memorial Medical Center (Tala Hospital) in Caloocan City will get the first shots of the vaccines, vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. earlier said.

/MUF