MANILA (Philippine Daily Inquirer/Asia News Network): The country’s healthcare system should not be compromised amid moves to open up the economy, the chairperson of the Philippines’ vaccine expert panel said.
Dr Nina Gloriani said that the issue of economy and health amid the pandemic should be a “balancing act.”
“There should be a balancing act. We have to open up our economy as well. On the other hand, I would rather normalize the situation. What we don’t want to see is that our healthcare system is compromised and a lot of people will be brought to the ICU, hospitalised, or even die,” Gloriani said in an interview on One News PH Wednesday (June 22) night.
“But so far, we have not seen that in our hospitals, so we still see some protection from the vaccines we deployed,” she added.
Gloriani said the shift to the face-to-face mode in some activities should be monitored.
Asked if some areas in the country should move up to Alert Level 2 given projected rise in Covid-19 cases by the end of the month, Gloriani said she cannot respond for now, but stressed that a “sizeable number of population” have already been vaccinated.
“We should balance this. I don’t want the economy to stop too. We cannot afford it,” she added.
