MANILA, Philippines — Around 7.9 million of adult Filipinos in the National Capital Region have completed their vaccine doses against COVID-19, Interior Undersecretary Jonathan Malaya said Friday.
The number of full vaccinated individuals in Metro Manila comprises 81.4% of the eligible population in the region, Malaya also said during the streamed ceremonial vaccination adolescents with comorbidities.
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Around 9.1 million Filipinos in the NCR, comprising 93.3% of the eligible population, are waiting for their second dose, the DILG official added.
Government data shows that 54.44 million doses of vaccines have so far been administered to Filipinos. As of October 21, around 25.1 million Filipinos have received their full doses of vaccines against COVID-19, while 29.34 million others are waiting for their second jabs.
Malaya said that the government is also now turning their focus on vaccinating the rest of the country.
“If our target is to reach population protection by the end of the year, we need to ramp up by one to 1.5 million vaccines a day,” he added.
The government in October, five months since the rollout of its vaccination program, has also started inoculation adolescents.
Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte said that in their locality they are 10,000 Filipinos away from reaching their target to fully vaccinate 1.7 million adults, which is 80% of their eligible population.
Data from the local government also showed that 1.9 million have so far received their first dose, she added.
Belmonte welcomed the start of vaccination of adolescent Filipinos as she noted that Quezon City, whose residents compose 25% of Metro Manila, is composed of fairly young population.
She said that there is “no vaccine hesitancy” in Quezon City as she vowed that the local government will continue to work to reach depressed areas to bring health workers and inoculate the urban poor communities.
Health authorities on Friday logged 5,823 new COVID-19 infections, continuing the nearly two weeks since daily infections fell to four-digit numbers. National caseload is recorded at 2,745,889, with 66,838 tagged as active cases. — Kristine Joy Patag
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Disclosure: Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte is a shareholder of Philstar Global Corp., which operates digital news outlet Philstar.com. This article was produced following editorial guidelines.