MANILA, Philippines — Since there is no longer an urgent need to give booster shots against COVID-19 to the “vast majority” of the population, the House committee on the welfare of children yesterday advised the Department of Health (DOH) against acquiring “too many stocks” of bivalent vaccines.
BHW party-list Rep. Angelica Natasha Co said in a statement that acquiring 30 million to 40 million doses of these vaccines should be enough.
Co, who chairs the committee, noted that the 179 million doses of COVID-19 jabs administered so far have been enough to protect the general population despite the many variants detected in the country.
Proof of this, she pointed out, “is the very low numbers of severe and critical cases recorded for many months now.”
“The COVID-19 vaccination policy stance should be pragmatic or realistic, given all the current available data. Enough time has passed to reasonably believe that the worst of the pandemic is over and the country has withstood any new variant that has entered the country,” she said.
Given this, Co believes that the “time for aggressiveness and overzealousness is over” in relation to the pandemic.
“It is now time for an exit strategy. I believe DOH should get just enough of the bivalent boosters for all the health care frontliners, the immunocompromised, persons with disabilities, persons with special needs and seniors who have received one or two booster shots,“ she added.
The department could also secure a supply for working adults who have received one or two booster shots; college and high school students who have received one or two booster shots; young children who have completed their primary doses; Filipinos on outbound travel from the Philippines and foreign nationals on outbound travel from the Philippines and who have not yet received the bivalent booster shot abroad.
She added bivalent boosters should be optional or voluntary for all working adults, including essential workers, who are not within the high-risk population segments.