Showing that he is very serious about his administration’s Covid-19 booster vaccination campaign, President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. on Wednesday morning publicly received his booster shot against Covid-19 at the Department of Health’s vaccination site at a Manila mall.
Booster shots, Marcos stressed, will help the government bring “everything back to normal.”
DoH Officer-in-Charge Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire administered the 64-year-old President’s second Pfizer booster shot during the launching of the PinasLakas vaccine campaign at SM City Manila.
Marcos, in an interview shortly after receiving his vaccine, said he was not feeling any side effects.
“Nothing so far. There’s no pain in my arms, so I feel fine,” he told the press.
Marcos explained that the campaign for booster shots is a critical element in the gradual reopening of the country’s economy and easing of public health protocols.
“So this is what we are campaigning for now, especially now that the economy is slowly opening up. We don’t want a lockdown,” Marcos said.
“We really want to remove the masking protocol. We can’t achieve all of that if we don’t take booster shots now,” he added.
The Chief Executive encouraged the public to get their booster shots to ensure that “they are safe as they return to work and go back to schools.”
“It’s very clear the benefits of having a booster shot now to combat the problem with the new variants of Omicron,” he said.
Marcos said vaccines to fight new variants of Omicron are underway.
“Now, I was just told by Undersecretary Vergeire, it looks like there is a vaccine to be released for the new variants of Omicron. So we will study it and if it is going to be helpful, we will do everything to bring it here to the Philippines so that we can give everyone who needs a booster shot,” he said.
The President received his second booster shot alongside his eldest son, Ilocos Norte 1st District Representative Sandro Marcos.
“I asked my son to join me so everybody can see that even younger people who are still going to… I asked him to join me to demonstrate how important it is to us that everybody gets their booster,” he disclosed.
Marcos noted that even if one already received their second dose of the anti-Covid-19 vaccine, it is important to get their booster shots due to the emerging new variants of the coronavirus.
The President took the opportunity to thank health workers for their sacrifices amid the pandemic.
As of 14 August 2022, at least 72,107,090 individuals have received their second dose of anti-Covid-19 vaccines while some 17,015,413 got their third dose or booster shots.
From 8 to 14 August, the DoH detected 28,008 new cases of Covid-19. It is three percent higher than the cases recorded from 1 to 7 August.
Of the number, 101 cases were categorized as “severe and critical cases” while 229 Covid-19-related deaths have been recorded during the first two weeks of August.