Thread by @cnnphilippines

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Finance Assistant Secretary Paola Alvarez on borrowings for COVID-19 response, vaccines: ₱72.5B is allotted for the vaccination program, ₱70 billion of this will be from additional revenues or loans. bit.ly/2Lxx5F6

DOF: The cost for the entire vaccination plan depends on what vaccines are procured - the quantity of doses, temperature for storage, and how many shots.

DOF: PH will use low-cost, long-term loans from the likes of ADB and World Bank for up to $1B (about P50B). We will also tap ₱20B from domestic borrowings from Landbank, DBP, and GOCCs.

DOF: We also have other sources like bilateral loans and grants with countries where the vaccines are being produced.

DOF on additional foreign loans for COVID response: All countries are not really ready for this pandemic and many are borrowing money. On selling properties, it's possible but it's not the most efficient way to fund vaccine procurement. bit.ly/3nshzaA

DOF: Why are we borrowing from ADB and World Bank? Hindi readily available ito, we need help to buy them. There's a quota per country if we don't ask for the help of development partners. bit.ly/2LzQzZr

Can we vaccinate all Filipinos? DOF: The goal is to vaccinate 100 million people, but we can only provide about 20% of our need at present under the COVAX facility. This is why we're discussing with UK and US for more supply.

DOF: Uunahin muna natin ang frontliners, health officials, armed personnel and frontliners to ensure that we can open up the economy pending wider vaccination.

DOF on accounting for vaccine budget, purchases: With ADB and World Bank, we have a watchdog. Hindi sila papayag na hindi tayo transparent dito. Ineensure nito na sa tama mapupunta ang inuutang natin.

DOF: The goal is to buy 148 million vaccine doses in 2021 for 50-70 million Filipinos. bit.ly/38qguMr

Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Association of the Philippines President Dr. Beaver Tamesis on vaccine procurement: If everything works out fine, maybe we can get the supply between March-June. bit.ly/2JUFLVq

PHAP: Vaccine makers with ready supply are already in talks with PH government, once they get emergency use authorization they should be ready to go.

PHAP on vaccine hesitancy due to Dengvaxia fear: The lack of vaccine confidence has been here, na-aggravate lang ng Dengvaxia. My company also supplies vaccines, we educate people. bit.ly/38q4Ml1

PHAP: We can convert the low acceptance rate to almost 90% or higher. I anticipated that response, but we should really educate the community once we have the COVID-19 vaccines.

PHAP on preference for Western vaccines over China-made doses: Alam nating matagal talaga i-develop ang vaccines dati. Dapat ligtas na ligtas talaga ang bakuna. In this crisis, people did things in parallel, so some are questioning the side effects. (1/2)

PHAP on preference for Western vaccines over China-made doses: Transparency is important, ilabas ang resulta ng trials. (2/2)

PHAP: AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Moderna have been regularly publishing their data, walang tinago. That is critical to regain confidence.

PHAP on cold storage facility for shipment of temperature-sensitive vaccines: The Pfizer vaccine is more concerning because it needs freezer conditions. Logistics firms like Zuellig already invested on this and procuring the freezers, mukhang maayos na.

PHAP: Flying the vaccines in and out of PH is also a concern. Other brands are ref-level, we can handle them. I think we are ready for it, but how ready are we to distribute these to our countrymen in municipalities, other areas? bit.ly/3s3dvBb

Metro Pacific Hospitals President Augie Palisoc: We serviced about 2.6M patients in 2020. Of these, 300,000 were classified as COVID-19 cases and the rest are regular patients.

The group owns Makati Medical Center, Asian Hospital, and Davao Doctors Hospital, among others.

Metro Pacific Hospitals: What our hospitals did is to quickly establish capability to deal with COVID-19 and that our hospitals are very safe to service non-COVID patients. bit.ly/3s5Xdrh

Metro Pacific Hospitals on supporting health workers: We thank all of our health workers, doctors, and staff. We really can't fathom the kind of dedication and hard work they're giving to fight the pandemic.

Metro Pacific Hospitals on vaccination: We're working on that, it's the government going to lead that thrust. Our chairman Manny Pangilinan is 'very deeply involved' with the tripartite agreement on vaccines to donate some doses to the government.

Metro Pacific Hospitals: We're working closely with the IATF vaccine working group. We encourage our hospitals to work with LGUs. Our country is used to immunizing 1-2M people a year, now the goal is 50 million. bit.ly/2XkP9Vk

Metro Pacific Hospitals: We're trying to identify our people for COVID-19 vaccination. Since there's rapid antibody testing, we feel that the same system we developed can work on the vaccination process.