MANILA — Dahil mapapamahalaan na ang mga kaso ng Covid-19 sa bansa, sinabi ng Department of Health (DOH) na hindi na nais palawigin ni Pangulong Marcos ang state of calamity.

“The President is really very hesitant to extend the state of calamity (due to Covid-19). The DOH, in actuality, we requested for the extension not because of what we have as a situation but because of technical reasons, because of the different conditions such as vaccines and other things,” sinabi ni DOH officer-in-charge Maria Rosario Vergeire sa panayam ng “The Chiefs” na ipinalabas sa One News ng Cignal TV noong Miyerkules ng gabi.

Sinabi niya na nakipagpulong siya sa Pangulo kamakailan, at hindi ito pabor sa bansa na nasa ilalim pa rin ng state of calamity o emergency.

“This is because we are now seeing that our cases are manageable, our hospitals are well prepared and our occupancy rate for our Covid-19 cases is very low,” wika ni Vergeire. “I think we are all moving forward. We just need to ensure that our safeguards are there so that if and when a new variant enters the country and cases start to increase, our (health care) system will be able to manage.”

Idinagdag ni Vergeire na kahit mag-expire na ang state of calamity, maaari pa ring itutuloy ng bansa ang pagbili ng bivalent vaccines.

“We just need to go through the usual process of procurement. This is what we call competitive bidding and we have discussed this with the President already and he told us to go ahead,” wika ng health OIC.

“Donations of bivalent vaccines are expected to arrive soon, and that in about how many months, the vaccines we procured will also come in and vaccination will just be continuing. We don’t see any gap in the vaccination of the population against Covid-19,” dagdag niya.

Sa isyu ng pagtatalaga ng Pangulo ng bagong health secretary, sinabi ni Vergeire na walang alok mula sa Office of the President (OP) para sa kanya na maging kalihim ng DOH.

“I just like to clarify that from the very start, the post was never offered to me. I was assigned as OIC and was told to just stay on and do the work and that’s what I have been doing,” dagdag niya. “There were people asking me, some feelers… that I can possibly take on the job but never coming from the OP.”