40,000 Manila residents vaccinated in one day

MANILA, Philippines — Over 40,000 people received their COVID-19 vaccines in Manila on Saturday, the city government’s all-time high in its vaccine rollout, according to Mayor Isko Moreno.

This was the city’s new record high number of vaccines administered in a single day, Moreno said on his Facebook live on Saturday.

The local government vaccinated 42,645 people as of 8 p.m. on Saturday, beating its previous record of 35,572 vaccine recipients on June 22.

Moreno thanked the city and barangay officials, police, volunteers as well as residents for joining the vaccination drive.

“Vaccination should be faster than COVID infection,” Moreno said.

Meanwhile, Navotas Mayor Toby Tiangco urged the elderly to get vaccinated amid reports that only a few senior citizens under the A2 category have been jabbed.

Tiangco said only 13,808 senior citizens out of the 31,000 target population of the elderly got their vaccines.

“This is still less than half. If we don’t increase this to 70 percent, we might not get the priority in getting the vaccines, and this might slow down our free vaccine drive,” Tiangco said.

He appealed to senior citizens to get their free COVID-19 jabs so as not to jeopardize the city’s vaccination program.