MANILA: Placing all regions under the most lenient Alert Level 1 status will push the country toward full economic recovery.
National Task Force (NTF) Against Covid-19 chief, Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr., said Tuesday that inoculation remains the key to achieve the goal as he urged participation in the fourth “Bayanihan, Bakunahan” national vaccination drive this weekend.
“We have to expand the Alert Level 1 nationwide so that we could achieve full recovery and all of our establishments will operate 100 percent with their workforce at full capacity alignment,” said Galvez, also the vaccine czar, during a vaccination activity at a business process outsourcing company in Makati City.
He said fully vaccinated individuals must avail of booster shots, too, to maximise protection against severe effects of Covid-19.
“Considering now that we are under Alert Level 1, we have to protect our economic front-liners and their families,” Galvez said, referring to the National Capital Region and 38 other areas.
Aside from ramping up administration of booster doses, the government aims to hit 70 million fully vaccinated Filipinos by the end of March and 90 million by June 30.
“Vaccination sites are now saturated so we have to bring the vaccines to the people by all means, in their houses or in workplaces,” Galvez said.
Citing the earlier report of Health Secretary Francisco Duque III, Galvez said the country is currently at “minimum health risk”.
The Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases will meet again Thursday to discuss the shift to Alert Level 1 in more areas.
“We will look into the recommendation of the economic sector,” he added.
“Hopefully, we can go back to the new normal.”
The Philippines has so far administered 136,163,623 doses of Covid-19 vaccines, with 63,789,508 already fully vaccinated with either two doses or the single-shot Janssen and Sputnik Light jabs.
A total of 10,616,335 have their booster shots.
The country’s average daily vaccination rate in the past seven days stood at 147,007 jabs.
As of Monday night after the arrival of 1,167,660 doses of the Pfizer jab, the country has already received 232,673,310 doses.
