No Booster, No Entry Proposed in Metro Manila: Duterte Adviser
Boosters should be required before entry to estabvlishments in Metro Manila and other areas with high vaccination rates to encourage more people to get a third jab, an economic adviser to President Rodrigo Duterte said Wednesday.
The booster jabs shuld be a minimum requirement in areas where 70% of the population are vaccinated, Presidential Adviser for Entrepreneurship Joey Concepcion said.
"In Manila, we should now enforce that these booster cards be shown so you have to bring now your vaccination card and your booster card," he said during the online Kapihan sa Manila Bay.
"That should be the minimum health protocol even without alert levels because it will remind us to take our vaccination on a regular basis, our booster on a regular basis," he said.
Except for the single dose J&J vaccine, vaccine brands that are given in the Philippines require two shots for full vaccination while the third serves as a booster.
Concepcion also proposed scrapping the alert level systems in areas with at least 70% vaccination. Acting presidential spokesperson Karlo Nograles earlier said authorities should ramp up COVID-19 vaccination first in other regions before scrapping the alert level system.
The Philippines has fully vaccinated more than 59 million Filipinos, or almost 76% of the target adult population, said Vince Dizon, the Deputy Chief Implementer of the National Task Force COVID-19 said on Wednesday.
About 7.5 million Filipinos have received their boosters, said Dizon.
The government aims to double the delivery of boosters to 500,000 jabs per day from the curent daily average of 250,000 by concentrating on Metro Manila and other areas with high vaccination rates and expanding the rollout via pharmacies and private sector clinics, he said.
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