Expert backs redefining ‘fully vaccinated’ individual

MANILA, Philippines — A former special adviser of the National Task Force Against COVID-19 is in favor of redefining a “fully vaccinated” individual.

Apart from receiving the two primary vaccine doses, a person should have also been inoculated with a first booster shot to be considered fully vaccinated, according to Dr. Ted Herbosa.

“Many vaccines really require three doses, such as polio, hepatitis and MMR (measles, mumps and rubella). In the beginning, we don’t really know yet the required number of doses for one to be called fully vaccinated,” he said at a recent televised briefing.

“This is the reason why I fully support the proposal to make the definition of fully vaccinated as three doses, so that many people will be given protection, especially now that students are set to go back to school this August,” he added.

Herbosa pointed out that a redefinition would help convince others who choose to wait for these “new generations” of COVID-19 vaccines to first get their booster shots.

“In the meantime, I advise the public to avail themselves of the existing vaccines that still offer partial protection. It is better than having nothing,” he said.

“If you wait for the new vaccines, you might get hit with the newer variants,” he added.

As of last Thursday, more than 72 million Filipinos have been fully vaccinated, according to the Department of Health (DOH).

At the same time, the DOH also reported that more than 16.8 million individuals have received their first booster dose while almost 1.7 million have received their second booster shots.

4,661 new cases

Meanwhile, the DOH recorded 4,661 new COVID-19 cases Friday, bringing the nationwide tally to 3,823,084.

The DOH’s latest data also showed that the country’s active cases increased to 40,315 from last Thursday’s record of 37,962.

The total number of recoveries went up to 3,721,825.

As for deaths, there was a slight increase from Thursday’s 60,916 to Friday’s 60,944.

The top three regions that logged the most number of cases in the past two weeks were the National Capital Region with 15,725 cases, Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, Quezon) with 10,102 and Central Luzon with 5,201, according to the DOH.

Total number of individuals tested for COVID-19 reached 29,944,441 including the 24,697 who subjected themselves to testing last Thursday.