Senate President Vicente Sotto III and I had a good meeting with the three czars of the government’s COVID response Thursday night to discuss red tape issues and the funding needs hounding the country’s fight against COVID. We met with vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr., testing czar Vivencio Dizon, and contact tracing czar Benjamin Magalong.
Image Courtesy: National Task Force Against COVID-19 Facebook page
Unless the government accelerates the pace of its COVID vaccination efforts, herd immunity may have to wait until about 2033, Sen. Panfilo M. Lacson stressed Friday.
Lacson also said there is still much room for improvement in the government’s response to the pandemic, a year after it imposed community quarantine in Metro Manila to stop the spread of COVID.
“Unless we accelerate the pace of vaccination, medyo matatagalan tayo. As of March 10, 114,615 had been vaccinated. At the rate of about 4,000 a day, assuming that the vaccination is not accelerated and assuming we will have the vaccines for the 70-million targeted population for herd immunity, we might not achieve herd immunity until 2033 at the rate we’re doing it now. But if we accelerate and I hope the government would accelerate the vaccination rollout, then maybe we can advance the timetable,” he said in an interview on CNN Philippines.