No need to mandate boosters yet despite low uptake — DOH’s Vergeire

The Department of Health (DOH) on Tuesday said it is not yet seeing the need to mandate the administration of COVID-19 booster shots, just like the primary vaccine series, to the general public despite its still-low uptake.

At a DOH briefing, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said some of the government’s strategies in the past were “effective” to ramp up the COVID-19 vaccination in the country even if it is not required.

She also pointed out that there is no law mandating the booster inoculation.

“Kailangang pag-aralang maigi kung talaga bang ang direksyon ba ay mapag-aralan at magkaroon ng batas para sabihing maging mandatory ito for everybody,” Vergeire said.

“Sa ngayon, at this point in time, hindi natin nakikita na kailangan natin niyan. Katulad ng sabi ko nga, in the past, we were able to improve and increase our vaccination efforts by implementing different nudges na ginagawa natin,” she added.

(It is important to study carefully whether the direction is for us to have a law to make boosters mandatory for everybody. Right now, we don't see that we need to do that. In the past, we were able to improve and increase our vaccination efforts by implementing the different nudges that we do.)

Vergeire recalled that the government implemented an incentive and disincentive scheme before in a bid to encourage Filipinos to get the primary vaccine series against COVID-19.

Some of these former strategies include requiring RT-PCR tests for unvaccinated employees when reporting to work and allowing fully vaccinated individuals to dine indoors and enter other indoor public spaces.

“Hopefully we can do this again in the coming weeks para madagdagan ang mga strategies na ating ine-employ [and add to the strategies that we have employed] so we can improve on our booster uptake,” Vergeire said.

Based on DOH’s latest data, some 15.3 million individuals have received their booster shots, with 954,000 of which having received their second booster dose.

At least 71 million individuals, meanwhile, are already fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

The national government is currently administering first booster shots for aged 12 and above as early as three months after receiving their second primary vaccine dose.

Meanwhile, those who are only allowed to take the second booster dose yet are the frontline healthcare workers, senior citizens, and immunocompromised individuals. — RSJ, GMA News