Palace eyes 'new normal', 100% vaccination by end of Duterte's term

The Duterte administration is looking to vaccinate against COVID-19 all of the target population as it strives to place the country under the new normal amid the pandemic, President Rodrigo Duterte's deputy spokesman said on Friday.

Undersecretary Kristian Ablan made the remark as the Department of Health expected the number of new COVID-19 cases a day to go down to as low as 70 by the end of April if minimum health standards were followed.

“We are going to use everything under our power to achieve 100% vaccination and get back to new normal before the President steps down on June 30,” Ablan said.

As of March 24, independent monitoring group OCTA Research said the Philippines remained under the “very low risk” category for COVID-19.

From April 1 to 15, the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases placed  different areas across the country under Alert Level 1 and Alert Level 2.

The Department of Health on Thursday reported 327 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the total caseload to 3,678,245. A total of 39,315 cases are still active infections. —NB, GMA News