ILIGAN City ― In a statement here yesterday broadcast on air, the City Health Department appealed to residents to have themselves get booster doses against Covid-19.

Dr. Glenn Manarpaac, who is now the acting city health officer here, said that as far as the first and second vaccination doses, “the city has already achieved herd immunity.” Per data, he added, this city has vaccinated 76 percent of the population.

The city, to note has a population of 310,000.

Manarpaac said booster doses on the population should reach 50% in his first 100 days. But the acting CHO added that as of Friday last week, the percentage of these booster doses was only 17%.

However, the next day, it came up to 18%. He then cited the advantage of having these booster doses.

According to available data, he said, those who were unvaccinated when they catch the disease, will experience moderate or severe symptoms whereas those who are vaccinated would mostly be “asymptomatic.”

“Covid is still with us,” he said adding that with these vaccination targets achieved, the economy will fully open and maybe we can do away now with the mask mandate and other health protocols.

The city Covid cases have risen from seven to eight cases and now it’s 38, although most of them are not hospitalized; they are mostly quarantining themselves. This is also mostly true in other places in the country, he said as most of them are on the rise too.

Asked about the Inter-Agency Task Force, he said that it has been reconstituted already with the mayor as chair, the Vice Mayor as vice chair, and members are some department heads of the city government.

Asked by reporters whether there will be a third, fourth, and so on after the first and second booster doses, the acting CHO did not answer categorically as these are subject to studies for the moment.

Though he said, if compared to soldiers on the battlefield, with these boosters, the body can easily summon those soldiers to fight and “subdue the enemy.”

About those “reactions” after vaccinations, he said, those are “mostly cases of anxiety attacks” and these can mostly be taken care of by some antidotes.

Asked about Dr. Belinda Lim who had been the acting city health officer then but who was not confirmed by the Sangguniang Panlungsod under the previous administration, Manarpaac said, Lim was reassigned to the city hospital as one of the doctors there.