By Prince Golez
The sharp decline in the number of adult Filipinos unwilling to get vaccinated against Covid-19 indicates the major gains achieved by the national vaccine program, National Task Force (NTF) Against Covid-19 chief implementer and vaccine czar, Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. said.
Galvez was reacting to the latest Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey results that vaccine hesitancy stood at only eight percent in December 2021, compared to the 18 percent in September 2021.
“Napakaganda po ng mga resulta ng survey na ito. Ito ay nagpapatunay na naging epektibo ang kampanya ng pamahalaan upang makumbinsi ang ating mga kababayang magpabakuna na,” Galvez, Jr. said in a press release.
“This is not only a victory for the national government but for our nation as a whole. We were able to achieve this through the invaluable assistance of our local government units, our partners from the private sector, members of the media, and of course, all Filipinos had themselves vaccinated,” he also said.
The national government earlier launched the “Resbakuna sa Botika” program in a bid to further improve vaccination rates in the country and to hit its the target of administering 72.16 million Covid-19 vaccine boosters this year.
At present, the Philippines already administered a total of 122,889,494 vaccine doses, of which 57,095,695 are fully vaccinated.
Meanwhile, Galvez again appealed to the unvaccinated Filipinos to get shots as soon as possible to get additional protection against Covid-19 and its emerging variants.
“Lahat po ng ating bakuna ay libre, ligtas at epektibo. Kunin po natin ang pagkakataong ito para magpabakuna na, at maprotektahan ang ating sarili at mga mahal sa buhay,” the secretary concluded.
