THE Department of Health (DOH) confirmed on Friday that it has secured additional funding to extend the contracts of its vaccinators and proceed with the country’s reinvigorated Covid-19 inoculation program.
In the House of Representatives, meanwhile, Deputy Speaker Michael Romero urged vaccine czar Carlito Galvez to also consider the recruitment of more vaccinators to man 24-hour inoculation facilities that will be open even during weekends.
In an online briefing, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said that the government has already spent P400 million for the 3,000 vaccinators, “and their contracts would end in June.”
But, she assured the public, “we already allotted funds to rehire them.”
The DOH said that as of May 19, the government has inoculated more than 2 million Filipinos belonging to priority groups A1 to A3.
The country is set to begin the vaccination of economic frontliners and indigent population in the NCR Plus 8 by June, given availability of supplies.
In a statement, Romero said “I believe longer hours of vaccine center operations would address the problem of overcrowding and help guarantee the observance of health and security protocols.”
Covid cases
As of 4 p.m. of May 21, the DOH logged 6,258 additional cases, bringing the total number of infections in the country to 1,171,403.
The DOH also recorded 2,586 recoveries and 141 deaths.
Of the total number of cases, 4.7 percent (55,531) are active cases, 93.6 percent (1,096,109) have recovered, and 1.69 percent (19,763) died.
Moreover, 19 cases previously tagged as deaths were reclassified as recoveries; while 74 cases previously tagged as recoveries were reclassified as deaths after final validation.
All laboratories were operational on May 19, 2021 but five laboratories were not able to submit their data to the Covid-19 Document Repository System.
Based on data in the last 14 days, the 5 non-reporting labs contribute, on average, 3.5 percent of samples tested and 1.9 percent of positive individuals.