National Vaccination Day: 5 million eyed for inoculation

MANILA, Philippines — Some five million Filipinos are being eyed for inoculation during the three-day National Vaccination Day being prepared by the national government, the Department of Health (DOH) said yesterday.

According to DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire, the government is gearing for the holding of simultaneous mass vaccination activities.

“We are now on initial planning and coordination stages. This will be whole-of-government activities and all agencies will be mobilized to reach the five million (vaccinees),” she noted.

Based on initial plans, the vaccination sites would be expanded to include government offices, department stores and other public places.

Vergeire said they would also seek the help of health care workers from the public and private sectors, including those self-employed.

She said they have already met with local government units, which would be mobilized for the program.

“There will also be intensive social preparations such as dialogues, social media and quad media, featuring experts to explain the importance of getting jabbed,” she added.

House-to-house campaigns will also be conducted to get the support of the community.

Earlier, National Task Force against COVID-19 chief Carlito Galvez Jr. revealed the government’s plan to conduct a three-day National Vaccination Day event.

As of Nov. 4, some 28.7 million Filipinos have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, while another 33.7 million are partially inoculated.

The daily COVID-19 vaccinations in the country breached the one million mark on Thursday, Malacañang announced yesterday.

Presidential spokesman Harry Roque said a total 1,119,389 individuals were vaccinated on a single day.

He said prior to this, 932,762 persons were inoculated on Nov. 2 and 948,521 on Nov. 3.

“If it continues like this that almost one million a day are vaccinated, we will actually reach our target of population protection in December,” Roque said at a press briefing.

The government has increased its target number of COVID-19 vaccinations to 1.5 million per day.

Meanwhile, he said a total of 62.4 million doses of COVID-19 jabs have been administered as of Thursday.

In Metro Manila, more than 9.5 million or 97.45 percent of the target population received their first dose while over 8.6 million or 88.86 are fully vaccinated.

Roque said the country is expected to receive 1,733,940 more doses of Pfizer vaccines procured by the government through the Asian Development Bank.

In his public address early this week, President Duterte said he has directed Interior Secretary Eduardo Año to impose sanctions on local government units that fail to administer COVID-19 vaccines to their constituents in the “most expeditious manner.”  — Helen Flores