Sen. Villar: Allow vaccinated elderly to go out

Senator Cynthia Villar supports allowing senior citizens who completed their vaccination against COVID-19.

According to Eric Teng, president of Restaurant Owners of the Philippines, seniors are now allowed to go out to open restaurants in the United States and Israel.

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Villar supported Teng’s position that this could be done in the Philippines as well.

“Lowest infection in the US is 30,000 per day. Malaki ‘yun, kasi ang US 300 million (ang population), 30,000 per day. Tayo nga na walang herd immunity, ang ano (record) natin, 6,000 out of 100 million. ‘Yung 30,000 parang 10,000 per 100 million ‘yun. Mas mababa pa tayo sa US,” Villar explained.

“Bakit sila open sa lahat? Tayo e ang higpit higpit, ‘di ba?” she added.

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But Binay explained that the US and Israel will soon achieve their “herd immunity” against COVID-19.

Binay said that it is possible to allow the  to leave the house once the workers on the A4 priority list have been vaccinated.

“Siguro ‘pag nandiyan na ‘yung A4, because ‘yung seniors natin, pwede silang mag-spread ng virus, kasi ‘di ba, kahit vaccinated ka na, you can still get the virus, asymptomatic, but you’re spreading,” Binay explained.

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Sen. Villar: Allow vaccinated elderly to go out

At the same time, Teng proposed to give a special area in restaurants or other establishments to the elderly.

He also said that the rights of workers who do not want to be vaccinated with COVID-19 vaccines must be balanced.

“We are not forcing everyone in the A4 to get vaccinated. Therefore, we must never use that as a pre-qualifier for allowing people into our restaurants to come to work. We’re just trying to balance things out,” he said.

Vaccine czar Carlito Galvez, Jr., said the government will start vaccinating the A4 and A5 priority groups when the supply of COVID-19 vaccine in the country becomes sufficient.

The National Task Force (NTF) against COVID-19 said the government vaccinates an average of 162,513 COVID-19 people daily.

NTF added that as of May 22, the Philippines had given a total of 4,097,425  doses nationwide.

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