An engineer and a researcher have come up with a “vaccine calculator” that can help Filipinos monitor the implementation of the country’s national vaccination plan.
“How far in the queue am I?” is the question in the minds of many Filipinos, said Kenneth Alambra, a civil engineer from the University of the Philippines.
He said that with the estimated 110 million people in the Philippines, “not everybody can get vaccinated immediately.”
“It raises a whole load of new questions,” he said. “Who will be first in the queue to get the vaccine? When are you likely to be offered it? How far are we away from the finish line?”
Alambra, together with his researcher friend, Reina Sagnip from De La Salle University, came up with a “Philippine Vaccine Queue Calculator” for the Omni Calculator Project.
He said the “calculator” will estimate how many people are ahead in the queue to get a COVID vaccine in the Philippines.
“It also predicts how long you might have to wait to get your vaccine doses,” Alambra told LiCAS.news.
“Using our tool, you’ll have a better idea when you can expect to get vaccinated,” he said.
“The tool shows you the minimum and the maximum number of people in front of you and a range of dates you might have to wait till you get your shot,” he said.
The engineer said the “calculator” will also give the percentage of people who will take the vaccine when they are called to have it.
A recent survey noted that only about 40 percent of the respondents think they will take the COVID-19 vaccine.
Alambra said they based their “vaccine queue calculator” on data provided by the Philippine National Deployment and Vaccination Plan for the priority list and the likely vaccination rate to achieve the government’s target to vaccinate up to 70 percent of the country’s adult population.
The vaccine calculator takes into account the person’s age, profession, health condition, and risk factors.
“If we want to vaccinate 70 percent of our adult population by the end of 2021, we need to administer 1,274,980 doses per week,” said Alambra.
“At this rate, I would be in line behind at least 19,672,248 Filipinos who will need a COVID-19 vaccine before me, and my turn would fall between Oct. 3, 2021, and May 29, 2022,” he said.
The “vaccine queue calculator” will also indicate how long it might be before one gets both doses of the vaccine and be fully protected.
“By default, we base these figures on a vaccination rate of around 1,274,980 vaccinations a week,” said Alambra.
The rate meets the government’s target to vaccinate up to 70 percent of the Philippine population within 2021.
“We know that waiting to get the vaccine might be frustrating,” said the engineer.
“However, by prioritizing those people who are most at risk of hospitalization and death, we should quickly be able to save lives,” he added.
As of April 5, the number of Filipinos who received COVID-19 vaccines has already reached the 800,000-mark, with over 13,000 individuals with comorbidities having received their first dose.
Government spokesman Harry Roque said a total of 795,320 individuals have been inoculated against COVID-19 as of April 3.
Among those vaccinated were 765,871 medical frontliners, 16,121 senior citizens and 13,288 individuals with comorbidities.
Under the government’s vaccination priority list, healthcare workers are at the top priority, followed by senior citizens and those with comorbidities.
According to data presented by Roque, there are 2,669 vaccination sites across the country.
The country started its vaccination rollout on March 1, 2021, following the arrival of 600,000 doses of CoronaVac vaccine from Sinovac Biotech which were donated by the Chinese government.
