As of March 22, there are 8,019 new COVID-19 cases in the country, according to the Department of Health. Since March 19, there have been more than 7,000 new cases in the country on a daily basis.
While the inoculation of the COVID-19 vaccine brings hope that the end of the pandemic is in sight, hospital beds nationwide are filling up with critical COVID-19 patients. Medical workers are getting exhausted. Most people are getting tired and frustrated by everything going on.
In with this, Vice President Leni Robredo shared her thoughts and recommendations on what the government should be doing moving forward via her official Twitter page:
- She hopes that we are doing massive testing, contact tracing, and isolation especially in areas that are on surgical lockdowns. The previous target of conducting 30,000 to 40,000 per day is insufficient.
- The vaccination rollout needs to be improved. As of March 17, only 23.95% of healthcare workers have been inoculated with the COVID-19 vaccine.
- If the government is targeting herd immunity by the end of 2021, 256,993 people need to be inoculated per day. So far, the government is off-target.
- Health Sec. Duque said that inoculation of the vaccine cannot be rushed. Since last year, they were asked to come up with a deployment plan to mitigate this issue.
- The private sector can a big help to hasten the vaccination roll-out. Small companies shouldn’t have a difficult time securing vaccines for their workforce.
- Telling people to just follow the rules is easy if you come from a position of privilege. Stimulus packages would help a lot of struggling families.
- Our problems at hand are huge, and they should be dealt with collectively.
The ongoing pandemic is tough for everyone, and the challenges are huge. While everything seems grim, it may not hurt if people in positions of power would hear VP Leni out. Things may be bad right now, but there’s still hope for things to get better.
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