Senior citizens in Olongapo City benefit from the vaccination-on-wheels program of the local government. (Photo courtesy of Olongapo CIty Information Office)
The lack of vaccine appointments has been the main reason why nearly half, or 46 percent of Filipinos willing to be inoculated are yet to be jabbed, according to a September 16-30 survey presented by the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs.
Among those who still have to get their COVID-19 shots, another 22 percent said they “couldn’t get the type of vaccine I wanted”; 17 percent were not eligible; 15 percent noted that their “appointment time did not work”; 8 percent said it was “difficult to leave work or school” or found difficulty traveling to the site; 8 percent were unable to provide the required document; 5 percent cited technical difficulties with the vaccination center’s website or phone line; and 1 percent said information was not available in their native language.
By residence, 52 percent of the unvaccinated respondents are in rural areas, while less than half of those not protected by COVID-19 vaccines live in the cities.
Varied processes
For the majority of the eligible population, booking an appointment for vaccination varied as local government units (LGUs) were tasked to come up with their own systems and processes for the priority groups and the rest of the residents.
As more vaccine supply arrived starting September and increased the pace of vaccination in Metro Manila, some LGUs, such as those in Manila and San Juan, have relaxed their processes and started accepting nonresidents and even walk-in appointments in their vaccination sites.
Below target
The survey also noted that some employed individuals got their COVID-19 shots through the private sector, but the certainty of their inoculation was still dependent on their employer’s capacities to buy vaccines.
Vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. had said at a briefing on Wednesday that the country’s immunization program faced logistical challenges as regions other than Metro Manila were still below the target vaccination rate of 70 percent of their eligible population despite the steady supply of vaccines.
“We are now trying to solve how to make deployment [of vaccines] faster from the national warehouse down to the administration site,” Galvez said, adding that it usually took seven to nine days before COVID-19 jabs reached vaccination sites in the provinces.
Information source
With a running inventory of about 38 million doses, the government has raised the vaccination target to 1.5 million doses per day.
The Johns Hopkins survey also found that 87 percent of respondents would “definitely or probably” get their minor children vaccinated once they become eligible. This sentiment was shared across age groups, educational background, and area of residence at more than 80 percent. The government last week began the vaccination of children aged 12 to 17 with comorbidities in eight hospitals in Metro Manila.
Meanwhile, the survey also noted that Filipinos considered scientists and health experts (62 percent), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (60 percent) as well as local health workers (50 percent) as the most trusted source of information about the pandemic.
Among the COVID-19-related topics that Filipinos deemed important were the treatment of COVID-19 (59 percent), COVID-19 variants (46 percent), mental health (45 percent), other economic issues (45 percent), and the types of vaccines (34 percent). The survey was presented through the COVID Behaviors Dashboard developed by the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs and the WHO’s Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network.