Gov’t goal: Vaccinate all adults this year to achieve herd immunity

February 13 ------ Malacanang said on Tuesday that it is aiming to vaccinate the country’s entire adult population within the year. Speaking in a virtual media briefing, Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque said the government “is aiming for herd immunity as soon as possible.” “It is hard for me to answer because I am not a doctor. What I know is that they are looking at the validation of herd immunity in a year, if I am not mistaken, after the vaccination. That’s when we can confirm,” he said.

“We are aiming for even better because herd immunity is 70 percent but us, we are vaccinating 100 percent of the adult population within 2021,” Roque stressed. Herd immunity happens when the virus can’t spread in a community because it keeps on encountering people who are protected against the virus. Medical experts, however, pointed out that there is a lack of evidence supporting herd immunity. Instead, they prefer to call it “herd protection” since it doesn’t make a community immune to the virus, but only reduces the vulnerability of people that come into contact with it.

Source: mb.com.ph