Death toll mounts due to vaccine shortage
MANILA: President Rodrigo “Rody” Duterte warned the people to expect more deaths from the coronavirus (COVID 19) pandemic due mainly to severe lack of vaccines confronting not only the Philippines but also the world’s poor and middle income countries.
In his second pre-recorded “Talk to the People” televised address late on Thursday night, Duterte admited he did not know when the Philippines would get enough supply of vaccines to inoculate the 110 million Filipinos.
Duterte disclosed that the country’s current stock of 3.025 million doses of virus vaccines was barely enough to to inoculate the medical frontliners as well as senior citizens who are on top of the priority list.
“We won’t be talking about vaccines if supply is readily available. But there is none ater all. The word is unavailable. Unavailable because there’s no sufficient supply to inoculate the world,” Duterte said in a mix of Filipino and English.
“This will take long,” the president warned. “I tell you many more will die because of this.”
He issued the warning when he made his second report to the nation on Thursday, three days ater he first appeared in a pre-recorded address on Monday night to dispel rumors of alleged failing health when he disappeared from public view for two weeks.
Duterte made his last public appearance on March 29 when he led Cabinet members and other top officials in welcoming at the airport one million doses of Sinovac vaccines which the government had purchased from China.
The government started its nationwide inoculation programme on March 1, making use of the
Sinovac vaccines earlier donated by China and the UK Astrazeneca vaccines which represented the Philippine share from COVAX facility set up by the World Health Organization (WHO).
The government plans to inoculate 70 million of the Filipinos to achieve “herd immunity. But so far, officials admited only more than one million have been vaccinated, most of whom were medical frontliners such as doctors and nurses and the elderly.
As of Thursday, the Department of Health (DOH) reported that the country’s death toll totalled 15,594 from 148 new fatalities. Overall, it added that the national tally for new cases
11,429 reported that day.
Meanwhile,856patientshaverecovered,bringing the total number of survivors to 705,164, according to the DOH. But it also noted in its daily case bulletin that there are currently 183,527 active cases, most of whom are in Metro Manila considered as the epicenter of the pandemic. hit 904,285 from the