Palace says DOH to cease releasing COVID-19 bulletins as gov’t focuses on vaccination

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Health (DOH) will cease releasing its daily COVID-19 bulletins because the government is now focusing on its vaccination efforts, Malacañang explained Tuesday.

Cabinet Secretary and acting presidential spokesperson Karlo Nograles said daily COVID-19 updates may still be accessed in the DOH’s tracker found on its website.

He said the government will instead focus on the COVID-19 vaccination rate and hospital utilization rate.

“The reason behind that is right now we are really ramping up our vaccinations and the focus right now is vaccination,” he said in a Palace briefing.

“Ang magiging focus na lang natin ngayon really is the vaccination rate and hospital utilization rate, critical serve and mild cases,” he added.

The government is aiming to inoculate 77 million Filipinos by the first quarter of 2022 and with the ramped-up vaccinations, Nograles said COVID-19 cases may only be mostly mild and asymptomatic cases.

“Nandyan pa rin naman ‘yung COVID-19 tracker and anyone can continue to track the numbers through the COVID-19 tracker of DOH. The COVID-19 tracker will suffice for now in providing the regular updates to our kababayans,” he said.

The DOH earlier announced it would stop posting daily COVID-19 case bulletins on social media starting January 1 next year.

This is “to streamline public communication,” it explained. https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1532671/doh-to-stop-posting-socmed-covid-19-bulletins-in-2022

In an interview on Tuesday, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire explained the department decided to cease posting case bulletins as “most of the details that are included in the case bulletin are not so much useful to the citizens anymore.”

The DOH will instead release COVID-19 data with brief analysis to replace the daily case bulletins.