Incentives Eyed for Fully Vaccinated Individuals: The government is eyeing the possibility of giving incentives to individuals fully inoculated against COVID-19, reveals National Task Force (NTF) Against COVID-19 chief implementer, Sec. Carlito Galvez Jr., in an article published by the Philippine News Agency.
“Nakikita natin sa ibang bansa na binibigyan ng leeway yung mga nabakunahan na, especially yung mga elder (We see in other countries, they are giving leeway to those who are already vaccinated, especially the elderly),”states Galvez during a press briefing with Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque. “In order to motivate our seniors and also our people with comorbidities, kailangan talaga bigyan natin ng konting (we need to give them a little) leeway,” he adds.
Galvez relates to the situation happening in Israel, where fully vaccinated senior citizens can freely roam public places, whereas those unvaccinated are not allowed to do so. Thus, the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) is eyeing to provide incentives and privileges to the fully vaccinated populations.
“In the experience of Israel, there are some data showed that the vaccination really works—that means the vaccines they used were effective. And then it creates a lot of hope for us, just in case we will have a massive vaccination or get the threshold as mentioned by Sec. Duque—the population protection, it could greatly contribute to the gradual opening of restrictions, at the same time increase mobility so that we can open up our economy,” he says.
Galvez reveals some of the possible incentives.
“We are considering giving some sort of opening of restrictions to those persons who will be vaccinated, especially the quarantine protocols when they return from abroad,” he said.
Moreover, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III also shared his thoughts regarding the matter.
Kasi ang pakay natin sa bandang huli ay magkaroon po ng increased mobility ang mga tao po na nakakumpleto ng kanilang mga bakuna (Because our end goal here is to have an increased mobility those people who have already completed their vaccine doses),” Duque says.
“Kailangang ito po ay ituloy natin dahil hindi pa rin sapat ang datos para sabihin natin na kapagka nabakunahan ang isang tao ay talagang hindi po siya pwedeng mahawaan at makapanghawa pa (We need to continue doing this because there’s not enough data to say that once a person is vaccinated, he would not be able to get infected or infect others anymore),” he adds.
Duque clarifies that the vaccine expert panel and the technical advisory group of experts have yet to study the proposed plan. He adds that, despite privileges, health protocols such as wearing of face mask and face shields should still be observed as “there is no evidence yet” that vaccination can completely stop the infection. As of June 06, the country has already administered a total of 5,965,651 doses –4,421,319 as first dose and 1,544,332 as second/final dose.
