Road toward Herd Immunity: Where does the Philippines stand?

The World Bank (2021) discussed in their report, Global Economic Prospects,that investments and widespread roll-out of vaccines will likely be the keys in sustaining recovery in the global economy more than a year into Covid-19 pandemic. The World Health Organization also shared that the second year could even be “tougher given the transmission dynamics and other issues that they were seeing” (Ryan, 2021 in Reuters, 2021). Hence, countries around the world are gearing toward achieving herd immunity through vaccination so the disease won’t further spread and affect the health care systems and vulnerable segments of the population. However, the surge of infections due to the new variants of Covid-19 and limited supply of vaccines especially in low-income countries as well as slow roll-out of vaccination programs impede such recovery.

As the first offering of the series for 2021, this webinar will set the backdrop on the current status of the Philippines more than a year into pandemic in terms of effects on socio-economic indicators. It will also tackle the emerging covid-19 variants found in the country and its implications in flattening the epidemic curve and health care systems. For the third session, it will discuss the importance of herd immunity and successful COVID-19 inoculation program in curving the pandemic and moving towards the economic recovery. It will give an update on the status of the vaccination program of the government as well as the challenges encountered in implementing the plan and strategies to expedite the vaccine procurement and roll out in the coming months.

Rewatch the livestream of the webinar through Facebook Live.

 

Resource Person
	Dr. Marc Edsel C. Ayes Clinical Genomics Laboratory Manager and Clinical Health Officer UP Philippine Genome Center (PGC)
	Dr. Beverly Lorraine C. Ho Director of Health Promotion and Communication Service and Disease Prevention and Control Bureau Department of Health
Panel Reactor
	Dr. Eduardo P. Banzon Principal Health Specialist Asian Development Bank
Moderator
	Dr. Albert Domingo Health Systems Specialist