SEN. Joel Villanueva views the Duterte administration’s three-day nationwide anti-Covid vaccination drive from November 29 to December 1 as the awaited “booster shot” needed to ramp up inoculation and hit the 50-percent target nine months after the first shot was administered.
“This ‘one time-big time’ approach is what we need,” Villanueva said, adding he expects the year-end mobilizations to “draw the hesitant and the unreached to vaccination centers.”
The senator anticipates that one priority group would be comprised by workers and job applicants, noting, “their getting a job hastens the financial recovery not only of their families but of the entire economy as well.”
He suggests that one way of reaching unvaccinated people who are “outside the digital wall” is for the Duterte government to launch vaccination caravans that will sweep through workplaces and neighborhoods “with no or poor broadband connectivity.”
Villanueva added he expects a bigger turnout “if every presidential candidate will command their followers to support the planned three-day event” that he envisions to include “caravans and motorcades of supporters of presidential bets’ that will not just
expand the public information drive, but also provide free transportation to bring home vaccinated residents.
Moreover, the senator reminded that “vaccination transcends political
lines and color, and the combined persuasive powers of aspirants for the highest office of the land can break down vaccine reluctance.”