By Christine Fabro
President Rodrigo Duterte urged the Filipino people to get vaccinated against COVID-19 to slow down the spread of the virus in the country.
“The health and safety protocols we put in place have proven effective in slowing down the spread of the virus, but the best solution is still vaccination,” the President said during his final State of the Nation Address on Monday (July 26).
The President said that the health landscape of the country continues to improve with the continuous approval of COVID-19 vaccines.
According to the latest Pulse Asia survey released on July 12, some 43% of the respondents are willing to get inoculated with COVID-19 vaccine as soon as the jab is available, while the latest Social Weather Stations survey released on July 14 showed that 45% of Filipinos are willing to get jabbed.
The President said that the government cannot afford more lockdowns as an “enormous amount of resources have been spent” to build its capacity to overcome the pandemic.
However, he mentioned that stricter measures may be imposed if the spread of COVID-19 Delta variant cases continues.
“This is as good as any other time to say it seems that it is really dangerous. You have to go back to lockdown. We have it (Delta variant) here now. I hope it will not go any further. But if something wrong happens, I’ll have to be strict,” he said. –rir
